The project explores new ways of citizen participation -especially with children- in which people without architectural or theoretical background can co-design public spaces in an accessible way. It rethinks the way in which architects construct their design briefs for projects: not through passive observations or regulatory restrictions, but by empathic listening and playful questioning. The process includes children in the creation of spaces that stimulate creativity, self governance and free play by asking questions and using accessible tools fitted to their capabilities.
The design team consisted of children, adults and architects who worked on site. First, the children imagined their dream playground using drawings, maquette and storytelling. Afterwards, adults told stories about their favourite memories of playing as children and transformed the ideas produced by the children into models of playground elements. In that way the composition of the design team was exceptional as it consisted mainly of non-architects.
Afterwards, we translated the output into constructible playground elements. We minimised our role as designers and became more the facilitators of the project, laying out the process and assignments for the consecutive workshops so that the output could easily be translated into built elements with recycled building materials from @ROTOR & @INLIMBO and within the conceived budget.
Together with a team of volunteers, we eventually build these playful elements on-site with the help of @Tournevie. The elements together make a temporary playground at the Farm of Maximiliaan park where children could play in a semi-adventurous way. The constructed elements reflect the core ideas which came forward in the two workshops; through drawing, modelling with kids, storytelling and making the elements with adults we tried to reflect the recurrent playing patterns in built objects. The playing patterns and built elements included: hiding (in a hut), climbing (up a tree), defending (a castle), balancing (on a huge sea-saw), preforming (on a stage) and getting trapped (in a net). We sure had fun!
