Cities with kids in mind are drawing attention to the scale, tactile elements, moral exposure and essential needs. Designing for kids while designing with them. Have you ever seen ultimately imaginative place maybe in the gallery or in the theater? Did you immediately guess it must be for children? Why? Designing cities to suit children’s imagination, mobility and safety, to develop their perception and entertain them.
What do cities with kids in mind look like and how to design for them? Kids don’t walk in strait lines. They hop, detour, skip, run, pause to investigate, while testing the patience of any parent in the hurry. Polyglot Theater’s artistic director, Sue Gilles, has drawn on these child’s “desire lines”. Here we go; DESIRE LINES are a well-known urban design tool in creating best fit for the urban places and open spaces. In the theory of Urbanism desire line is that energy line that provides us all with the spine, the link, the why we go in certain direction and not anywhere else.
Set in Federation Square, Polyglot created child led art experience, worth describing first and analyzing right through.
Set was created with whimsical mix of small and secret spaces marked out with scents, sounds and seascape features, linked by stepping stones so children, some dressed in bubble-wrap suits, can play that age old favorite: get around without touching the ground.
If you watch how much play a child fits in while you’re walking from A to B, it is beautiful to see. It is brilliant human thing that we lose. The art of harnessing children’s imagination and defy simple categorization.
The play “We built This City” a child’s play construction event using cardboard boxes set that I know my son would indulge until everyone is long gone home and doorman is closing. We see children display their natural propensity to be supportive, to build bridges, to meet strangers, to create mass fantasy – all the stuff that adults have unlearned.
Sue Gills says in my own interpretation: over praising and over criticism can both harm children – on the path of becoming a reasonable adult. You see it takes a while for the child after the praise to unfreeze, to remember they can do something without an adult commentating on every step.
The Polyglot philosophy treats children like young humans with right to meaningful art they enjoy, rather than as unfinished humans who need art for self improvement.
It is an attitude that kids have responded to. While all art embraces risk, working with children, it takes unpredictability to the new levels. The biggest risks we take is how much we can let go. The opportunity to relinquish control is that you might find something absolutely wonderful. To clarify all, this has nothing to do with adrenalin – do not get me wrong, that has to do with the amount of un-happiness and need for over-stimulation.
Past experiences
Following from this observation to my experience with the workshop I participated in, run by “Komunikacije” Communication Serbian Urban Design and Social research consultancy. They created city streets in 1:20 scale providing with cardboard houses up to your waist allowing participants to create their neighborhood the way they can comprehend and with creativity of children present, process unraveled creative suggestions and provided real review and improvements on the spot.
Workshop was documented and photographed for further analysis and has been incorporated as part of site analysis and community consultations all at once.
Conclusion
Cities with kids in mind raise a question. Have we suppressed that childlike planning and design drive with desire to excel while overloaded with codes to obey by, so question is how can we be saved?
We shall follow the lead of The Creative with understanding of possibilities and desire for amazing, inspiring and ever evolving spaces of the future.
Urbanism profession shall re-enter the design process at early planning stages or shall I mention at the strategic level of all plans to collaborate and reinforce that creative prospect and capacity of all urban spaces.