European
School
of Urban
Game Design

September
2018 -
December
2023

Trust in Play brings together and supports emerging professionals in the field of Urban game design & play, mentoring them to build a sustainable practice and playfully explore new relationships of trust in cities.

This year Trust in Play focuses on the theme of Mysteries and is powered by 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture. It consists of 3 Cycles: Researching, Meeting, and Playing with the Mystery!

The 3rd Cycle, “Playing with the Mystery” brings together 30 designers, creatives, performers, storytellers, and educators from all over the world from July 16th – July 23rd, in Elefsina, Greece. The City of Mysteries and Arrivals.

Find the Open Call here and apply before Wednesday May 10, 2023 (Call is now CLOSED)

In the past, the school offered three branches, one in Amsterdam, one in Athens and a Nomadic branch for trainees in other european cities and was co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Become involved in the community around Trust in Play!

From the blog

Trust in Play 2023 @ Elevsis

Monday, 1st of August 2022, Maria Saridaki

Something playful this way comes! We are thrilled to announce that Trust in Play: European School of Urban Game Design will be open for new adventures in 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture! We are working hard to bring everything together with our old and new partners in play, so stay tuned while we explore/create […]

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International Training Week

International Trust in Play Training Week

The Trust in Play school year kicked off with a 5-day intensive training event in Athens, which included master classes from partner experts on key issues related to methodology, artistic and community approaches, game design and development tools, financing, production, business management and promotion for the urban games creation sector.

Dates: Oct 29 – Nov 2 2019
Location: Technopolis, Athens

All accepted trainees in the school traveled to the training week. In addition, there was a limited amount of places for people to join independently at their own expense.

If you are an organization that wants to help us with scholarship or you have professionals that could be interested in participating in the Training week, please write at trustinplayeu@gmail.com – we are actively looking to enlarge our community.

School Organisers

The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany with a global reach. The Goethe-Institut Athen is the oldest Goethe-Institut worldwide – it operates in the heart of Athens as a vibrant center of education and culture. Founded in 1952, it has developed strong and long-standing ties within the local and regional cultural sector and its relevant. It’s cultural and educational program strengthens the development of structures in civil society, foster worldwide mobility as well as collaborations with partners on the local culture scene stakeholders. Goethe-Institut branch-office Athens spearheads the TRUST IN PLAY project.

Iris Asimakopoulou, Project Coordinator
Matoula Koutsari, Project Coordinator
Sebastian Quack, Artistic Director
Maria Saridaki, Artistic Director

The Play & Civic Media research group explores play, games and other pervasive technologies to address societal challenges. It focuses particularly on the use of playful interactions that enhance participation, social cohesion, group dynamics and empowerment.

The Master’s program in Digital Design is a studio-based initiative that connects exploratory design with industry and civic partners. Starting from a Research through Design / Making approach, lecturers and students apply digital technologies to address a range of societal issues.

Urban spaces are a prime area of interest for Play & Civic Media, and Digital Design. Recent projects have addressed – among others – blockchain-based systems to manage common resources, pervasive storytelling for urban inclusion, and games for participatory design.

Play & Civic Media has co-organized the CHI Play and Games for Cities conferences in 2017, and will organize the Media Architecture Biennale in 2020.

Martijn de Waal
Gabriele Ferri
Tamara Dobler

EdgeRyders is a community-driven organization operating across different countries, with over 4000 change makers collaborating on an open Internet platform (http://edgeryders.eu).

We apply community building tools and methodologies to harness citizens’ smarts and creativity into more sustainable collective projects than the initiatives alone. We convene social innovators, artists, free technologists, sustainability thinkers, researchers and citizens from all walks of life; invite them to share their work openly online; meet and support them through offline activities to work together across borders in order to learn faster and build more impactful projects.

Game design and urban topic are one of the things that we’ve explored with our community on the past and the two more active member on it are the team that we will facilitate the Nomad branch.

Matteo Uguzzoni, Project manager
Natalia Skoczylas, Community manager
Noemi Salantiu, Fundraising and Institutional relationship

Technopolis City of Athens is a unique cultural complex in the heart of Athens that transformed a rare industrial monument into the most vibrant, multicultural space, attracting more than one million visitors per year. It promotes art and culture, music, education, innovation and entrepreneurship.

INNOVATHENS is the Hub of Entrepreneurship and Innovation of Technopolis City of Athens. It offers a dynamic space open to startups, creative people, research community and relevant institutions and aims at boosting entrepreneurial activity through training, networking events and business support with its’ Business Accelerator.

Antonis Oikonomou
Konstantina Zachari
Olympia Exarchou

Resilient Athens, aka The Resilience and Sustainability Department of the City of Athens, is engaged in the promotion of urban resilience and sustainability. Devoted to a more open, proactive, vibrant and greener city, the department designs eco-social policies that tackle chronic stresses and acute shocks that threaten the City and its residents, and orchestrates collaborative actions between citizens, communities, institutions and organizations for their implementation, in favor of social inclusion and cohesion and environmental sustainability.

Lenio Myrivili, anthropologist, Deputy Mayor for Urban Nature, Urban Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation at City of Athens
Yorgos Samantas, anthropologist/ locative media art
Mary Saradari,Office Manager on European Projects collaborating with the Resilient and Sustainability Office at Municipality of Athens.

Trust in Play Application Form

How to apply:

Step 1 – Post a hello message on our discussion platform to introduce yourself and tell a short story about your work (choose from: your best project, the time you messed up, where you trusted in something or someone)

Step 2 – Put together a PDF showcasing 2-3 relevant projects you have worked on and your cv (max 5 pages)

Step 3 – To complete your application, fill out the form

Application Form

Trust in Play is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

Partners:

In cooperation with: