DIY Playground

DIY P L AY G R O U N D c h a l k ‘ n ‘ t a p e

„Of course you can keep the game figures at our farmacy (...) if everyone would spend just a little bit of their time and create their space around themselves we would live in a tottaly different city“, - this is the answer we received from a local farmacy when we have asked to support to store our project by storing the checkers figures.

Initial concept of the playgruond

DIY- PLAYGROUND - c h a l k ‘ n ‘ t a p e

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Checkers.

The extreme difference of proportion between the Manhattan District towers and the residential buildings of the close neighborhood, inspired us for the creation of some‚ oversized‘ games. Since we wanted our urban playground to be multigenerational, we created a big checkers grid on the floor to involve both kids and parents of the community in our activities. The grid of checkers was created simply by sticking the tape or with the chalk drawn on the floor of the square, while the pawns were made by some collected bottles half filled with water to make them resist to the wind. The final step has been colouring in black and white with a spray the bottles to create the different teams. Since the beginning, the neighbors have been involved and especially the oldest kids and some of their parents were constantly playing together and also with some members of our team. The slow rhythmof the game allowed us to have some nice chats with the neighbors during the matches: in particular we spoke with some parents that were congratulating us for our initiative.

At the end, the game was so appreciated that some kids asked us the coloured bottles to go on playing it in future. Overall, the idea of setting a 1:1 scale strategic game has been successful especially to encourage the interaction between our team and the residents of the district.

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Hopscotch/Marelle The marelle, this game of our childhood, is a symbolic element in the collective imagination of the playground‘s environnement. Looking at this ephemeral workshop, developping a marelle makes sense.

Indeed, the ephemeral aspect of this game is strong, as it iscreated only with basic elements as shalk and pebble. In the framework of this workshop, in order to keep a strong graphic cohenrence we made it using orange tape and shalk. Basic rules also ; the earth, the sky, some numbers between, going from one to another in a minimum time. Nevertheless, we came to the conclusion that the rules are variating from one to an other country, Ekatarina and Noemie had a total different ways to play that game when they were young. Working with basic materials, basic rules, give to the people a way to express themselves, to digest the rules and make it their own. For example we saw boys trying to cross the marrelle as fast as possible without considering the shalk or the pebble.

An other day, a girl turning around the marelle with her bike. Doing this marelle allowed us to give the « signal » of the urban playground. Situated close to a tree with some improviseed benches around, the marelle place become a place of gathering, giving us the possibility to exchange with the neighboorhood, children and parents, as well as curious comuters.

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Football With my group we had to create an activity for a group of kids, and we decided to choose a sportive and healthy one, football. We created a field with tape, and used arcs in order to form the centerline.

The activity was a frank success and we had a very good result. All kids like to play football as it is not a difficult sport, and the rules of the game are simple and easy to understand. This activity, from the beginning provoked an obvious enthusiasm for the children. When they saw us draw the line, they were very excited; one of the children even asked us if he could help us finish assembling the pitch. Soon after everything was set up, the kids immediately began to play.

We had formed several teams with the kids, including all the monitors as well. We formed 4 teams of 4 players, and the first one to score 3 goals was the winner. We had invented creative and fun rules, so as everyone could have fun.

No matter the age, our group being children from 6 to 14, everyone played and participated. The kids were really happy and enjoyed it very much.

It was a productive activity because children had to learn to play in team, to get on well with the others kids and thus new friendships aroused from this activity. The monitors were very proud of the success of the game, and we all hoped that the kids will keep on playing and have fun with their friends playing in team in football, but also in any other sports.

Ping-pong

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The ping pong as a game needed more settings than other planned DIY games in the playground. Firstly, it was in our plans to use 2 trestles for table from the university and take a board as the table for ping-pong, by adding the net which we could make from some rope ourselves. Plan changed as there was a friendly owner of the neighbour pizzeria „O Sole mio“ and we asked if he can borrow us a bigger table on Friday.

The game itself was a very temporary activity in the square comparing to others - it existed in the square just 3 hours on the last day of the workshop. Considering that the weather wasn‘t the best for playing this game - it was windy and intermittently raining -, it was successfully integrated in the area. Firstly, it was really pop-up element in the playground, the planned place for the table changed after the agreement with the owner that it stays next to the pizzeria. Also the time of it was dependent on the ownerr, because he wanted to take it back when the pizzeria is closing - after few hours. Afterwards, the structure for the net was added with a help of a person not from the workshop team - he helped to make tight and firm structure for it from a rope and a part of a branch found in the space. Secondly and the most surprisingly, the owner had an experience of playing ping-pong before as a sport - the idea of making public ping-pong in the square helped us to gain a support from the local, who later on was a part of collectively shaping the playground. It also led to nice conversations with him, when we found out that he is living 15 years already in Belgium, though originally he is from the Kashmir region, but his family lived long years in Italy, he also lived and had some business in Switzerland. Afterwards he treated whole team with drinks. The repetitive comming back to the site got us respect from the owner, too, and his workers, he even said on Thursday- „you should come here to have some coffee“ meaning that we are his guests after comming back to

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Cardboard figures One of the games were stationary cardboard figures. As the name suggests we decided to cut out two funny figures from the cardboard - the king and the queen. The faces of each of them have been cut, thus allowing underlay their own (human) face under the funny king or queen figure. As a place of installation we chose the bus stop, and more specifically the glass walls.

The simplicity of used materials does not discourage pedestrians to short stop and take part in a game.

However, among the interested were only children.

Despite the encourage from us, adults do not expressed a wish to „underlay“ their faces. Nevertheless, it is interesting that the two cardboard figures were enough to spice up and make more pleasant for the children waiting for the bus. Undoubtedly, it also was the kind of help for parents who do not have to provide entertainment for impatient kids.

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Spantaneous games Parallel to the games organized and spatially marked by our team, a series of spontaneous games and activities were brought about either by the children or by us. Such was the ‘human basketball’, invented by Antonio, where he formed a basket with his hands and the children had to throw the ball inside (even If it was sometimes painful for him!) or the variations on the jumping rope game, proposed by one of the girls on the playground. These variations (one person in the middle rotates clockwise holding the rope, while the rest of the players jumps when the rope passes so that they don’t get hit) surprised the organising team, which also participated in the game.

The spontaneous games were very important for the evolution and success of the whole experiment.

While they used materials and tools intended for other or similar purposes, in similar but different ways, they encouraged inventiveness and creativity among all participants. Most importantly, they managed to establish a common ground, a feeling of spontaneity, of joy and of learning from each other, and they constituted tactics particularly important in the development of trust among the organizers and the children/parents. Even the organizers learned from the children new games and variations, new ways to use tools, materials, coloured tiles. And especially the jumping rope, spontaneously proposed and arranged, it was crucial in succeeding to involve younger children in the playground activities, children that could not play the games of the older ones (football and dames).

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DIY- PLAYGROUND - c h a l k ‘ n ‘ t a p e

„I really appreciate what you are doing. It gives me the impression that it‘s possible to achieve big goals also by small interventions“.

- the feedback by one of the local farmacists to our urban initiative.

DIY P L AY G R O U N D c h a l k ‘ n ‘ t a p e

2015

„Can we play football with you guys next week?“ - this feedback from local kids is what inspires us the most and makes us think that the playground is import part of participatory design as long as it has a continueity.