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Experiences of the Fremantle Asylum (1864-1908) Communicating spatial histories through game design.
No full textThis research aims to expand concepts of and access to the architectural heritage of the former Fremantle Asylum in Western Australia (WA) on Whadjuk Noongar Country. Heritage is an active process that creates meaning for people today; from providing a sense of place for all visitors, to revealing to locals where they came from and thus who they are. In WA, architectural heritage conservation practice has tended to favour physical, visually striking components, while interpretive site tours are more able to represent ordinary lives of the past, and spatial experiences. As site tours that deal with stigmatised histories are not always appropriate to a building’s current use, this research proposes a new heritage interpretation for the former Fremantle Asylum. This practice-based inquiry is supported by a combination of existing frameworks that were drawn from multiple fields: architectural history, architectural writing, autoethnography, and game studies, resulting in the creation of a board game called ‘Our Horrible Asylum.’ The game communicates three themes that emerged from the historical research: concealment, categorisation, and resistance. The themes are incorporated within the game’s play through the goal, rules and structure. Adjacent to the gameplay are booklets that further illustrate these themes, including a literary portrait of the architectural experiential history of the asylum. The research outcomes, which emerged during the practice of designing the research artefact, diversify the communication of embedded building histories so access to heritage meaning is increased
