Catalysing innovations by, with & for kids
Background
As technology advances and urban populations grow, cities around the world are exploring new ways to re-design public spaces in urban communities that promote play, connectivity and resilience. Gone are they days where play is limited to just parks. Children can play anywhere and anytime. Features such as stairs, public installations, natural features in the environment, cracks in the ground and lamp posts on a street, can become exciting elements in creative urbanplay.
For too long, designing play spaces for kids has been siloed and boxed-in. But that is changing. The boundaries between physical and digital boundaries are merging, creating unprecedented opportunities to stimulate play in fresh, engaging ways.
The Process
For this project, the team at Vivistop Welly used processes for co-design, research and collaboration with children, such as:
An ideation workshop was held with kids from the Vivita community (children aged 6-15). Approximately 10 children participated, coming up with “no-limits” ideas for play activities in different environments around Wellington city. Throughout the ideation session the children were given prompts such as ‘you have unlimited money for your idea’, ‘you have no money for your idea’ and ‘you can’t see anything’ implying that the idea should be accessible to someone who is blind.
Several inventive ideas came out of this session and at the end the children had a limited number of votes to spread across the large list of ideas.
This project wrapped up with a written report of insights and key recommendations which was then presented to the City Council. Key recommendations included:
At the time of this case-study, the Vivinauts have begun prototyping a playful wind-based installation with plans to install in the city center.
