LiegeCraft


Community Project, co-organized with Pierre-Yves Hurel, Alexis Messina & Maxime Godfirnon.
Liège Game Lab (LGL), Uliège, Belgium


I have also published an article titled Playing, Mapping and Power: A Critical Analysis of Using Minecraft in Spatial Design in the American Journal of Play in which I critically reflect on the particpatory model that uses the sandbox videogame.
In 2018, the Liège Game Lab in collaboration with the Digital Lab launched the “Liègecraft” project. A participatory project through which we aim to create a dialogue between citizens, associations and public institutions on the development of The public space of the city of Liège. Organized in a series of monthly workshops, the project brings together the local community to play the game Minecraft.  

Minecraft is a block building video game that gives its players a vast control over their virtual world. When Mojang introduced their game back in 2009, The game was then called “cave game”. Having only two block types, the main interest was to destroy rather than to construct, to dig rather than to build. And It was by this act of destroying the pre-created blocks that spaces were carved and lived. Inspired by the early versions of the game, our workshop follows a similar methodology: The map of Liège is first reproduced in the game platform (with a focus on “Place 20 Août” and its surrounding), then in a second phase, participants destruct and re-construct their lived and imagined spaces. 
Participants recreated the Gilets Jaunes protest movements in Minecraft
LiègeCraft, Phase 2, Courtyards by Hamza Bahsandy 


HAMZA BASHANDY, PhD        
Ludic Portfolio of Research and Design
hamza.bashandy[at]carleton.ca

I am an architect and game scholar. I teach in the Interactive and Multimedia Design undergarduate program and in the master and PhD program, specialized in digital media at the School of Information Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Design at Carleton University. My research sits at the intersection of urban issues and playful simulations, particularly examining the implications of playful interventions and computer simulations in participatory design and social movements...
RESEARCH & PUBLICATIONS
01. A Design Toolkit of Ludic Contentious Politics
FDG 2025, Graz, Austria

UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE
02. Mapping Spaces of Resistance in Videogames
FNRS Dissertation,    Liège, Belgium

03. Playing in a Lost Space
Heterotopia Zine 009 on Power    

04. Urban Rant Notebook
Indpendant ResearchARCHITECTURAL & GAME DESIGN
01. City.Craft
Workshop and Analysis of Minecraft in Spatial Design  

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY
02. Return to Sender 
Research Creation Project,    TAG Centre           

03. Playful Memory
Research Design     Labo LNA, ULiège. 

04. Oshtoora Festival
Design Build    MADA Architects, Cairo.    
 DIS-PLAY LAB
FOR LUDIC DESIGN AND SPATIAL PLAY   @CarletonU
Active Call MSc & PhD on Co-Design & Urban Sim Play
Start Date: January/September 2026    

Research Assistants & MS.c. Opportunities
M.Sc.       -> September 2025 / January 2026
RA-ships -> Flexibile

ACTIVE PROJECTS
The Crowd Problem in Videogames
SSHRC-funded project, Ottawa, Canada