20,000 Blocks — Blue Zone — Would You Mind Yona Friedman?

At the SmartGeometry 2016 we defined three independent experimental zones within our Minecraft server. That way 20,000 Blocks got the blue, orange and green test fields on which participants could try a different game design, targeted at a specific real-world use case.

In this post we present you the project from the blue zone – Would You Mind Yona Friedman? – created by Marios Messios and Max Rudolph.

To see the projects from the other two zones:
Green Zone
Orange Zone

It envisions 20,000 Blocks being used to design megastructures overarching the dense centres of todays cities.

We use a game called Minecraft that is played with simple graphics and rules.

The creative and building aspects of Minecraft enable players to build constructions out of tex- tured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. It’s a game where you build and demolish cubes of 1x1x1m. Currently about 22 million people use it.

In our cluster, 20000 blocks above the ground, we use Minecraft, Rhino, Grasshoper and Ginger (//female robotic arm) as the end means to pro- duce our models.

First of all we think about the rules, we design the game and as we play the model is designed. By using Rhino we translate the model and do a structural analysis in grasshopper.

We then feed point information to Ginger which grabs the cubes, pushes them to the glue and po- sitions them exactly on the spot and builds this model of ours.

The rules of the game are simple.
Get rewarded by building as many houses as possible and guide the structure to it’s maximum vertical and horizontal growth.

photo: Max Rudolph

photo: Andrea Quartara