Summary

This article includes the fundamentals, reflections, and artifacts connected with the intention to integrate playful interactions within the Social Innovation Workshop (TIS) at the Centro de Investigaciones de Diseño Industrial (CIDI) at UNAM. The four study cases included are arranged considering two views into design: on the one hand, the MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) framework developed by Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek (2004); on the other, the Social Design Circle, our own model designed at the TIS which is based on the emotions that allow the generation and transmission of knowledge, as well as the means to channel the students’ creativity. The artifacts described below denote the efforts made to stimulate the intrinsic motivation of a group of participants. Throughout the process, synergies are generated and imaginaries combined, turning working spaces into convivial spaces that allow us to learn from ourselves, from the communities with which we interact, and from the systems in which we practice.