PLAY–URBAN CHILDHOOD

Rationale

Play serves as an essential human experience across all stages of life, and thus enhances all aspects of a civic landscape system. Playful, urban environments offer learning opportunities, express aspects of local culture, contribute to safety, and enhance the physical and mental health of a community. Creating a playful city enables meaningful interactions and connections to place for all users.

source: www.kurraltakgn.sa.edu.au/

Design for play in cities requires multiple views on how and where play may occur. With increasingly dense urban areas, planners, developers, and designers must consider not only how spaces afford multiple functions, but also how spaces afford play and accommodate children.1 Play occurs less often when confined to the few small playgrounds in a city. Instead of setting aside spaces for play, cities could integrate play into the places of everyday life--streets, sidewalks, bus stops –making play convenient and spontaneous.2 Using nature for play offers essential opportunities for children to build intimate relationships with place and the natural systems around them. Manipulable elements and multi-sensory experiences characteristic of nature facilitate creativity, and living systems add value with each passing season to teach the regenerative qualities of nature. Through this deep relationship with nature, children may develop ecoliteracy in addition to many cognitive and physical benefits.3

1 London Plan 2011 Implementation Framework “Shaping Neighbourhoods: Play and Informal Recreation”

2 Next City: “For Family-Friendly Cities, Build Play Beyond the Playground” https:// nextcity.org/daily/entry/playgrounds-public-transporttion-cities-family-friendly

Design for inclusion creates an environment accessible for children of various ages and ability levels, while also encouraging social interaction through thoughtful grouping of activities.

Reflection

This reflection focused on developing guidelines for design with play integrated in civic spaces. Understandably, play often occurs spontaneously in unexpected places. With the extreme safety regulations in traditional American playgrounds, little is left for children to experiment or manipulate. From the readings, we each developed guidelines for activating play in public, urban spaces.

Guidelines for play in a civic landscape include:

1. Safety – from busy streets and crime.

2. Accessibility – for all abilities and integrated into daily routines such as bus stops.

3. Engaging Physically + Socially –invites collaboration.

4. “Loose Parts”1 – materials that can be creatively manipu lated by users such as natural materials – sticks, leaves, water.

5. Interaction with Ephemeral Elements –qualities that change over time, such as seasonally.

Relationship To Studio Site

Even with the presence of elementary schools and children, the Licton Springs-Haller Lake Neighborhood lacks play opportunities both in quantity and quality. Through design, we hope to integrate play as an underlying feature that attracts people not only to come but also to stay. We will explore how play can be a tool for different types of learning, including cultural, ecological, social, and physical.

Christopher Jobson in “Musical Light Swings on the Streets of Montreal” at http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/09/musical-swings-on-the-streetsof-montreal/