KIDS
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RACHEL MEI-LAN TAN
KIDS WEEK 00 20/08/2015
04 LITTLE THINGS PLEASE LITTLE MINDS 05 A BULLDOZER DESTROYED OUR PLAY AREA AND ADULT FRAME OF MIND 11 THIRD SPACE BETWEEN NATURAL & MAN MADE 13 WHERE DO CHILDREN PLUG INTO THE URBAN NETWORK? A CHILDREN’S TOPOGRAPHY 14 COMMERCIALIZATION OF THE PLAYGROUND 17 BETWEEN THE SCALES OF TOY-PLAYGROUND-SCHOOL MINOR OBJECTS WITHIN A CHILDREN’S COMMONS 18 A SPACE AND PLACE FOR CHILDREN TO PARTICIPATE 22 UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY RESOURCES & TIMED BUILDING 28 SCALE AS THE LIMIT 31 CHILDREN ARE A PIXEL THAT OUTGROWS THEIR GRID 32 EVOLUTION OF INHABITED SPACE WHICH ACCOMMODATES DIVERSITY 35 A CHILDREN’S GATEWAY THEIR SEQUENCE INTO THE CITY
Children by the way...
“The first time they realise they grab something and become aware of that thing as well as their hand becoming a second thing... a second thing with five working parts. To them these two things combined contain endless possibilities. They learn the infinite use of shaking something up and down. Little things please little minds Exactly. Then they realise they have two hands, and they begin to understand the subtle differences between left and right, and of ‘dit’ and ‘dat’. They they see the hand of someone else giving something to them, and the useful world opens itself up, and they start to understand how they play an active role in that world, beyond observing it. After a while children realise that they can move around, and select useful objects in the space around them, instead of other; and before you know it, they are learning about the whole in the assembly of parts.”
NAIVE SET THEORY : ANTHONY HUBERMAN
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A BULLDOZER DESTROYED OUR PLAY AREA WHERE CAN I PLAY?
ISN’T IT IN FACT DURING CHILDHOOD THAT WE AT THE BASIC LEVEL
ORGANIZE MOST KNOWLEDGE AND COMPREHEND THE WORLD, ASSIGN NAMES TO THINGS IN CATEGORIES LIKE TYPOLOGIES AND FUZZY SETS, GROUPINGS WITHOUT DISTINCT BORDERS
YET I EXIST IN THE CONSTRUCTS FIT FOR PEOPLE ALMOST TWICE MY SIZE AND WHEN I AM BROUGHT TO PLAY I WAIT IN LINE TO SLIDE DOWN THE YELLOW TUBE 05
A common day in an adult’s life brings them from point to point destinations home > work > movies > grocery stores > home It is prescribed and diurnal, but in the end their flow through built space is self dictated. There is a population of people between the ages of 0-10 who do not have the freedom of choosing where to go and what to do, and the reality of their every day is controlled by an adult.
CAR BACKSEATS : UNKNOWN
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As children endeavor to weave themselves into the fabric of a city - it is an adult world, where the same built environment and space is both used and perceived by children, but in a way much different to adults.
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BOY ON THE WALL : JENS S. JENSEN, GOTHENBURG 1973
How can we foster a better sense of ownership and belonging for a child in the formal aspects of the city? With a heightened awareness that allows them to claim their own spaces and determine their own activities, rather than conforming to adult-designated sites of play.
RISE OF THE GIFTED : FRIEDRICH SEIDENSTUCKER, BERLIN 1950
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To also encompass discovery and encourage children to learn independence and gain knowledge through exploration. It is through shared spaces where they learn about interaction (social and virtual), participation, and self measured growth.
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TUNNEL MAZE : SIDNEY GORDIN FROM PLAY SCULPTURES, MOMA NY 1954
Modern urban fabrics need more demographic diversity in regards to the concept of children’s space. As this public fun house mirror is capable of introducing augmented reality, mis-perception, and immediate reaction to your own action, there is a necessity to balance the man made with natural outdoor environments that exist as the third spaces between : home > school > daycare > home.
UNTITLED : JOHAN NIEGEMAN, BERLIN 1926
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These third spaces are not ones limited to the constructs of man, where ideas of learning and play have heavily relied on commercially plastic fabricated playgrounds and the square classrooms where children are taught in. Let’s reintroduce what the earth is capable of cultivating and rewarding us with, and emphasize the system of natural resources into learning. This original garden world, the existing fabric that is paved on top of to construct a layer for human use, is the environment that is the center of our nourishment, energy, and beauty.
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UNKNOWN : ITALY
A set of rigorous studies called “Mental Mapping” of urban neighborhoods in Los Angeles were provided to city planners to enhance their understanding of diverse groups using the city. This study didn’t include the ages of people between 0-10...
DIJKSTRAAT PLAYGROUND : ALDO VAN EYCK, AMSTERDAM 1954
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STUDIES OF THE CHILDREN’S ENVIRONMENT ARE LIMITED TO THE OBSERVATION OF INDIVIDUAL STRUCTURES SCHOOL | DAYCARE | PLAYGROUND
A NEW STUDY SHOULD MAP THE NETWORK & RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INFRASTRUCTURE, MAN MADE PLAY SPACES, & GARDENS
WHERE CHILDREN PLUG INTO A CITY NO LONGER LIMITED TO SINGLE DESTINATIONS
TO COMPOSE A CHILDREN’S TOPOGRAPHY 13
In fact children prefer to claim their own spaces and determine their own activities rather than conform to adult designated sites of play. The modern playground has evolved into a such rapid fabrication it has unfortunately been simplified to consist only of the four S’ Swing Sandbox Seesaw Slide
INFLATABLE FURNITURE : STEPHAN GIP UNDER HAGAPLAST, SWEDEN 1936 STICKERS : UNKNOWN
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Play, for these children can importantly equate to “being rather than doing.” This supports a need for design of children’s spaces that offer greater flexibility of use and abstraction, with more opportunities of “being” (ie sitting and socializing) and with less scripted spaces and accoutrements.
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JUNK - ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND : FRANCIS REISS, COPENHAGEN 1943 MCONALDS PLAY STRUCTURES AND THE HAPPY MEAL TRANSFORMER ,1955 AND DISNEYLAND , USA 1954
THIS THESIS WILL CURATE A CHILDREN’S COMMONS WHICH WILL ACT AS A RESOURCE LIKE THE SUN TO A PLANT
THAT IS AN URBAN NETWORK OF SPACES BOTH FABRICATED AND NATURAL
DESIGNED FOR THE CHILD BY THE CHILD
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RANGING BETWEEN THE SCALE OF “TOY” “PLAYGROUND” “SCHOOL” THE HUMAN SCALE
ADDITIONS & SUBTRACTIONS WILL BE INJECTED INTO A CITY AS MICROCOSMS
IT WILL FOCUS ON THE MINOR OBJECTS THAT ARE OFTEN OVERLOOKED
WITHIN THE FABRIC OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 17
After All, children do need a space. We want to keep them off of the streets, and instead of ripping down basketball courts in order to build a new multi-use luxury high rise, or even providing them with thoughtless playgrounds, we need to find more effective ways of providing them space and place.
NEW YORK, 2015
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A space and place which can be surveyed, but also allows their own freedom.
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ROOFTOP KINDERGARTEN, UNITE D’HABITATION : LE CORBUSIER MARSEILLE 1952
The post postmodern paradigm is participation
THE ORANGE SUN : ANATOLY KHRUPOV, USSR 1960
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CAPTAIN KID’S WORLD : ERIC MCMILLAN, OHIO 1979
With this children’s commons, one which belongs to everyone and also no one, and its use is controlled by common consent, it is constructed out of participation. It can be encroached upon, partitioned, enclosed, and even invaded.
IMAGINATION PLAYGROUND-PLAY WORK BUILD : DAVID ROCKWELL, WASHINGTON D.C. 2014 MAPLE HOLLOW BLOCKS : CREATIVE PLAYTHINGS, NEW YORK 1957
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Such raids are natural, and Western society is going through a period of intensifying belief in private ownership, to the detriment of the public good. Through collaboration children understand their single significance within a group, paired with ideas of sharing, ownership and competition, mimicry and drive.
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BULLY : UNKNOWN PUPLIS AT THE SCHOOL FOR MOVEMENT (LABAN SCHOOL) : GERHARD STALLING, ZURICH 1926
It is this larger system of community + environment that can provide a wholesome education. As man made tools, like building blocks and foam forms, are given to a child to build with, what happens when these resources run out? Or when their forms restrict them to cyclic modes of production? Raw or found materials, whether found on the street or cultivated next door, provide children with an ingenuity to continue building and playing within their own culture and regionalism. This allows them the basic understanding of the unique resources that are special to their geographic location. It introduces a larger idea of scale that informs their role within the community, alike to how a single bee produces 1.5 teaspoons of honey in 15-28 days, in contribution to the total 5 liters produced by the hive.
PLAYGROUND FOR FREE - CABLE REELS : PAUL HOGAN, PHILADELPHIA 1974
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PLAYGROUND FOR FREE - TIRES : PAUL HOGAN, NEWCASTLE 1974
It is equally important to position scale and democratic objects that range between “toy” and “furniture” in order to condition children how to design and build their own compilation of objects or space, be it form or function.
THE TOY : CHARLES AND RAY EAMES 1951
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And let’s not forget to question what they learn in schools... ...to dance, or to learn from the elements like how snow dissolves in the sun.
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DANCE CLASS AT INSTITUTE FOR THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER : G. HUNT, SCOTLAND 1825
IN OUR OWN PEOPLE’S PARK THE CITIES WE ARE FAMILIAR WITH
SCALE OF AN OBJECT OR ENVIRONMENT
IS THE ONLY WAY TO BUILD ASSOCIATION & MEANING OF A SPACE IN RELATION TO OURSELVES US BEING THE
HUMAN
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FREEHAND DRAWING EXCERCISE : JAMES LIBERTY TADD, NY 1899 CONTAINER HUMAN : ICO PARISI, COMO1955
Scale is both a limit and driving cause for exploration in this thesis. It defines the boundary of object relationships and fuels our comprehension of how we belong in space. Children are an anomaly as their perception of scale changes parallel to their physical growth, but also psychologically where, through their aging process, they accumulate an understanding of the ‘fundamentals’ which makeup the built environment.
STANFORD ARBORETUM CHILDREN’S CENTER : DONALD MACDONALD, SAN FRANCISCO 1989
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Children are a pixel that outgrows their grid. Their growth signifies their impermanence spatially. Outgrown products begin with cribs and high chairs, their drawing table set and rocking horse, and soon they become bored with the wood block animal puzzle because there is only one solution. These singular items become recycled from child to child and household to household as their duration of use expires. The problem lies that the saturated market for child-scaled furniture and toys far eclipses the market for child-scaled space.
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KINDERGARTEN EXERCISE : JOSEF SUDEK, CZECHOSLOVAK 1934
HOW CAN A CURATED ENVIRONMENT ENCLOSED OR OPENED
BEGIN TO ACCOMMODATE THE DIVERSITY OF MEASURED HEIGHT AND REACH
AS A CHILD AGES WITHOUT BEING OUTGROWN
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BUILT SPACE IS CONVENTIONALLY CONSIDERED STATIC
CAN IT BECOME A MORPHOLOGY OF SUCCINCT HABITATIONS THAT ARE ABLE TO EVOLVE WITH THE CHILD & THEREFORE
TO BE A FLEXIBLE SYSTEM CAPABLE OF PREDICTING THEIR FUTURE ASPIRATIONS
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more importantly...
CAMPO URBANO : UGO LA PIETRA, COMO 1969
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CAN THIS THESIS PRODUCE A CHILD’S GATEWAY INTO A CITY AN ENTRY THEY CAN CHOOSE TO PASS
WHERE THEIR DEVELOPMENT CAN BE FOSTERED IN PHYSICAL & MENTAL GROWTH AS WELL AS THE LITERAL PROGRESSION THROUGH A CITY SEQUENTIALLY
AT A PRESCRIBED SCALE
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This thesis will use the latest studies on children and learning in order to precisely study and design the objects intended for their use and the environment in which they live in. It will be informed by such fundamentals as surface, material, color, and not be limited to inanimate things, but also gardens, and farms, to further their understanding of our contemporary world
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I am interested in the development of an architecture according to the parallel strategies of being grounded in the “PRIMITIVE� values of wholeness, distillation of language and form, and being shaped by a constructional and structural exactitude. To innovate in modern architecture therefore depends upon the technologies available, collaborations, new knowledge, and trial & error.
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goodbye...
TOYS “R” US : ANDREAS GURSKY, 1999
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CONSIDERED SITES - BUT NOT LIMITED TO DEVELOPING COUNTRY CHINA CULTURAL REVOLUTION - ERADICATION OF “INTELLECTUAL CULTURE” EDUCATION ON MUSIC, POETRY, ART ONE CHILD POLICY “CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE” CHILDREN ARE SENT ABROAD TO BE EDUCATED CUBA RECENTLY “OPEN” CHILDREN LIVE WITHIN ADAPTIVE RE-USE COMMUNIST EDUCATION HISTORICAL PRESERVATION LOCAL ITHACA - MILSTEIN HALL ABILITY TO WORK ON SITE “FURTHERING EDUCATION” PEDESTRIAN BASED HIGH DENSITY BROWSING CROSS OF MULTIPLE USERS
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