Craft-my-Street: Build Your Dublin!

Ever imagined how a street, park, or even an entire area of Dublin could be transformed? Now's your chance to not just imagine it, but to build it in Minecraft!

Join the Craft-my-Street Minecraft server and play alongside friends as you bring your innovative ideas for Dublin city to life. This isn't just about gaming; it's about giving young people a powerful voice in shaping the future of their communities, one block at a time.

Ready to start building?

Follow these steps to join the adventure:

1. Register Now: Fill out the form below. (Note: Please ensure parents/guardians complete the consent form if you are under 18).
2. Claim Your Plot: Join our server and find your unique plot in a real-world replica of Dublin.
3. Build & Explore: Let your creativity soar! Build your vision, explore the city, collaborate with others, and rank up through exciting challenges.
4. Invite Your Crew: Share the fun! Encourage your friends to register and join you in transforming the city.

Why Participate?

The Craft-my-Street project is a research initiative from the UCD Spatial Dynamics Lab. We empower young people to actively contribute to urban planning discussions, particularly around sustainability and climate change. Your builds aren't just for fun—they provide valuable insights that can help shape real-world policies and city improvements!

Register Here

This server has been created using OpenStreetMap data and Arnis.

The CRAFT-MY-STREET Project is an SFI OurTech Challenge project that aims to bridge the worlds of gaming, learning, and participatory decision-making for climate action.

Our goal is to amplify young people's voices in society by providing playful experiences—a crucial step in addressing pressing societal challenges like climate change and urban sustainability.

To achieve this, we developed a web-based platform that uses gamified, participatory processes as a two-way communication channel between the public sector and young citizens. This approach not only promotes digital transformation in the public sector but also drives knowledge transfer by reaching youth through the digital spaces they already know and love.

The Solution

Our solution centres around the development of a Playful Participatory Planning System (P-PPS).

The Craft-my-Street platform acts as a user-friendly, web-based tool for educators and local authorities, allowing for the rapid creation of site-specific Minecraft virtual spaces. Minecraft was selected due to its immense popularity and scalability, making it the perfect environment to engage schools and young citizens in the planning process.

Powered by Real Data: A major strength of this tool is how it leverages existing open-source and official geospatial data. This means it's not just a game; it is a transformative new way to approach spatial learning and civic engagement.

Stakeholder Engagement

Explore the interactive map below to view our project reach and stakeholder engagement to date:

Craft-my-Street (CMS) Pilots

How Does CMS Work?

The Craft-my-Street game-based approach engages young people in decision-making processes using a combination of digital and analogue games. Our methodology relies on three core pillars:

• Terra Tinker: Our online game world generator allows for the rapid creation of site-specific Minecraft worlds based on real-world open data, giving young people a familiar canvas to address local challenges.
• Hybrid Game Approach: We combine Minecraft with ready-to-use analogue games to bridge the real and virtual worlds, providing a balanced, collaborative learning experience.
• Gameplay Analytics: Custom server plugins monitor participant actions during gameplay. We use heat maps, network diagrams, and spatial analyses to help Local Authorities (LAs) review consultation outcomes in a robust, data-driven way.

A Track Record of Success

The CMS team has successfully tested this approach with primary and post-primary schools, conducting in-class activities that blend analogue and digital play. To date, a total of 210 children and young people have played in 8 site-specific Minecraft worlds.

Recent success stories include:

• 2024 — Fingal County Council: We organized NBScraft during Dublin Climate Action Week. The ideas shared by local children will directly support the development of the Swords Local Area Plan.
• 2025 — Dublin Docklands: Awarded Pilot Case funding, we engaged 5 schools and 169 young people. Participants proposed urban interventions around their schools and presented their ideas directly to Dublin City Council staff.
• 2026 — Dundrum by Design: We applied our hybrid approach to gather children's opinions for Dundrum's future, introducing core themes that mirrored the broader community consultation.

Pilot Structure

Local authorities in Ireland are making active efforts to ensure their plans are inclusive by integrating community input early in the process. We are keen to collaborate with LAs to test our tools in upcoming public consultations. Each pilot is co-developed with the overseeing local authority and implemented in four phases over 3 to 6 months:

Phase 1: Workshop Preparation

We collaborate with the local authority to identify a spatial challenge and select schools, community centers, or libraries to host the activities. We support this phase through:

• Capacity-Building: Training and resources for LA officers and teachers on using the CMS game design framework.
• Game Design: Access to analogue games (via craftmystreet.com) or ad-hoc development for complex spatial challenges.
• World Generation: Using the beta version of Terra Tinker to create the custom Minecraft world of the focus area.

Phase 2: ‘Space & Voice’ Workshops

Children play together using analogue games and the custom Minecraft worlds. These activities are designed to increase civic participation, enhance climate literacy, and gather youth perspectives on the specific spatial challenge.

Phase 3: Data Analysis

Our Gameplay Analytics allow LAs to debrief gameplay sessions using robust data. We collect, log, and display player behavior and environmental impacts using various visual data techniques.

Phase 4: Audience & Influence Events

Children present their ideas and visions back to their local communities. These events facilitate vital dialogue between the children, parents, community members, and LA representatives, showcasing the true potential of participatory urban planning.

Explore Our Pilot Cases

Read more about our past deployments and youth engagement initiatives:

• Swords, Fingal (September 2024)
• Smart Docklands, Dublin (Pilot Project Award 2024)
• Dundrum by Design (Youth Engagement)

As part of the project, we conducted a series of workshops with key stakeholders—including teachers, local authorities, and researchers. These sessions were designed to showcase our tools, educate participants, and gather the essential feedback needed to refine our Playful Participatory Planning System (P-PPS).

Explore the timeline of our workshops below:

Timeline of Workshops

October 2023: Gameplay Design (Workshops 1, 2 & 3)

We used an iterative process to design game mechanics for multiplayer online activities. These mechanics promote crowdsourcing and education, and were made available as templates for various digital and analogue game-based applications.

June 2024: Sense-Making (Workshops 4 & 5)

We employed data mining techniques and gameplay metrics to transform players’ interactions within the game environment into spatially referenced information. This data was converted into quantitative 2D/3D visualizations and qualitative metadata, providing valuable, validated inputs for real-world policy making.

September 2024: Pilot Testing (Workshop 8)

In this interactive session, Minecraft was used as a tool for children (aged 8 to 16) to learn about and create nature-based solutions for Swords. Participants explored the area in Minecraft and collaboratively designed their neighbourhood.

• More details about the workshop
• More info on Dublin Climate Action Week 2024

October 2024: Resources (Workshops 6 & 7)

We collaborated with our target stakeholder groups over two workshops to create comprehensive resources. These guides demonstrate how to use our specialized game environments and mechanics for various applications, such as engaging young people with disabilities in public service design or adapting local areas to the effects of climate change.

Resources

Analogue Games

Download our ready-to-use analogue games to bridge the real and virtual worlds in your classroom or workshop. Click the icons below to access the Google Drive materials:

Craft My Coast
Carbon Neutrality
Happy Village

Craft My Shore Game

Craft My Shore is a turn-based strategy game where you’re tasked with protecting the city from the encroaching sea.

How to Play

• Movement: Each turn you have 6 movement tokens. Buildings (red) cost 6 to move, terrain (yellow) cost 2, and vegetation (green) cost 1.
• Objective: Your primary task is to protect the buildings from the approaching water.
• Rising Tides: Every turn, the sea will progress towards the city. Over time, this rate will increase, with more and more water threatening the urban area.
• Review & Share: At the end, you can review each turn and download your game's end state. We’d love to see these! Upload them in the feedback form below.

We’d love to hear what you think. Fill out your feedback here:

Craft-my-Game Prototype

We are currently developing the 'Craft My Game' approach, where users will be able to create custom games using a simplified criteria-selection framework. A working prototype of the tool is now available for you to test.

Having trouble viewing the prototype? Click here for the alternative link.

This project is funded with the financial support of the European Union's Recovery and Resilience Facility, under the Science Foundation Ireland OurTech Challenge (Grant Number: 22/NCF/OT/11150).