Exploring Gamification: Playing and Learning through War-time Architecture

This paper explores wartime architecture, exemplified by Hong Kong’s Shing Mun Redoubt, as a testament to humanity’s complex history, advocating for its preservation through gamification and phygital (physical-digital) technologies. Existing studies on heritage conservation highlight the potential of integrating sensors with Virtual Reality (VR) in educational contexts. This research introduces a framework (VUA)—combining VR, Unity software, and Arduino-based sensors—that merges ludic narrativity (playful storytelling) with gamified architectural elements to create multi-sensory interactive experiences. A literature review informed the framework’s development, enabling bidirectional interaction between virtual environments and physical sensors, which participants used to engage with and learn about architectural history through immersive experimentation. An experiment assessed participants’ engagement within the VUA framework, focusing on three factors: the degree of immersion, the ease of knowledge acquisition, and the impact of multi-sensory feedback across physical and virtual environments. Results demonstrate that the VUA framework, when applied to the architectural history of the Shing Mun Redoubt, simplifies complex historical concepts and enhances experiential learning. The study highlights the potential value of gamification in deepening educational and historical appreciation of wartime architecture, while identifying opportunities to optimize the VUA framework for interdisciplinary applications and more effective learning outcomes