PLAYFUL BALTIMORE The Child’s Neighborhood

MIT SMArchS Architecture + Urbanism

Taught by : Rafi Segal - 2022 abstract

Playful Baltimore reorganizes the typical Baltimore block typology by recalibrating existing informal methods of community based surveillance facing children and youth. The project builds off of communal methods of observation and introduces new types of block typologies that expand the child's playful territory. Although the roles of existing characters, such as the watchful neighbor, the corner store clerk and the mailman are maintained, their stage is manipulated, welcoming new opportunities for visual and social interaction.

The child's neighborhood expresses their own appropriations of their territories, sometimes formal, and sometimes playful in reaction to the outdated existing configurations. Manifesting in different scales, these block interventions allow for different methods of exploration and discovery.This project is a response towards multiple community meetings where parents and community leaders expressed the lack of safe spaces for children especially after school.

Since it first began, Baltimore’s black community has fought to secure, protect, and expand their individual and collective rights and opportunities in America. Today, the city is a study in contrasts. The once “black capital” turned into one of the most segregated cities in America. The site, Greenmount Avenue, is located in the northern part of the city center, in close proximity to both the Central Business District and the intersection of major corridors which serve as a City-wide transit hub. Along the avenue there are multiple residential blocks and major historical sites including the Greenmount Cemetery, the former Baltimore City Detention Center, and extends to the John Hopkins University.

Leveraging from existing vacancies, community anchors, and underutilized open spaces this projects considers a different Baltimore, one that is safe for children without traditional methods of policing and surveillance.

Above : What does a child’s neighborhood look like? What are their territories in and around their home and how do they appropriate space fit for their imagination?

Above are initial studies to understand the ways children visually and socially interact with different community members. Types of interactions include the corner store clerk, school teachers, and neighbors.

Left :

Study of different methods to bring more opportunities for community engagement. Children frequently appropriate their territory to fit their imagination and currently, the existing historic fabric of row house typologies limit their imagination.

Scale one : Neighborhood

How can the urban territory of children expand, perforating existing vacant houses. While working on the community scale, the focus was put on collecting and visualizing current vacancies and exploring ways to retrofit those vacancies to spatially and visually open the neighborhood, welcoming new types of community engagement and interaction

There are three types of common vacancies in the neighborhood that involve single, double and triple unit voids. This drawing explores potential methods to reclaim these voids, giving it back to the community as an asset that not only increases value, but brings spatial agency back to the community.

Pink represents moments where spaces previously occupied by vacant homes are opened up, and retrofitted.

This scale proposes a new Baltimore Block typology that slightly offsets each row house . By doing this the street-scape is internally focused while backyard courtyards focus externally. What might a visually child-safe space look like? How can a neighborhood be safe without traditional methods of surveillance?