A place to play - Children's design threaded in the urban fabric of Rosengård.

Sammanfattning: In urban areas, the battle of space is more important than ever. The spaces and environments we grow up in are shown to be crucial for the identity we develop throughout our childhood. Therefore, the way our cities are designed and developed can largely impact who we become. The whole perception of society starts with children’s play, yet we tend to deprioritize their playing environments. For decades adults have been framing spaces for children and their play. All over the cities, we see the same kind of play-kit, beautifully fenced off to favor the child’s safety and control the “mess”. A place where time and space are very much controlled. However real-life can be “messy” and in play, time and space are totally dissolved. Children are on a journey to become independent human beings and we must help them in that process. Too much control and restriction may inhibit their journey. The project is taking a starting point in James Gibson’s theory about Affordances and Marketta Kyttä’s conceptual framework for a child-friendly city. The project seeks to reclaim our outdoor spaces and build a generation of healthy, happy adults who are ready to take on the world. The design seeks to give the children tools to feel a sense of their own autonomy showing how it feels to be an actively engaged human being. It is about helping to expand the horizons of childhood and to honor and respect children’s appetite for experience. The proposal is implemented in an area of Rosengård, Malmö, and turns into a design that decentralizes play in the urban environments and lets play take place all over the city.