To do this week:
- Investigate my idea further
- Explore the idea of play and connection
- More research
- Testing design thinking and ethos for the project
In a post-pandemic world, how can play help us to reconnect?
I decided that I needed to think about and investigate my idea further. I started by sketching and writing down questions and words associated with my idea.
Who am I aiming this at? What is the purpose? How could it work?
What could my outcome be?
Do I want this to be a product? An installation? An activity?
It could be a game or a toy? Something people can buy and use with friends, partners, families to bond and connect?
It could be a thing people visit and interact with – creating connection with friends or other strangers who are also interacting with it?
It could be a book or a magazine that reteaches adults how to play?
I created a mindmap around play to explore how I could approach the subject of play and what section to focus on:
What kind of play am I interested in?
Instead of one specific type of play, I think that I am interested in playfulness and how we can add play into our daily lives. I want to inspire people to live in a more playful way, instead of simply playing a game and them moving on with their lives in the same way. I want to get people to look at their surroundings in a different and more playful way.
Who do I expect to use it?
People who are going about their daily lives. I want them to feel inspired to interact with what I’ve created in some way
What should they get out of it?
It should be fun, make them smile/laugh, create some kind of interaction with others.
How will it make people connect?
Maybe it will need two people to work. Maybe it will inspire people to do something nice to others after interacting with it? Maybe it’s placement will spark conversation and interaction around it as different people engage with it.
Case Study Research
I undertook some case study research to analyse some other projects that are related to my idea.
Yinka Ilori
Designer Yinka Ilori created an adult playground for visitors of the Cannes Lions festival to “tap into their inner child. The playground was colourful and geometric-patterned and designed to encourage adults to play.
I think the shapes and colours really grab your attention and make you want to engage with the playground.
“Adults should play more because it frees the mind and brings out a different type of happiness that you can not recreate anywhere elsewhere but only when you play,” believes Ilori. (Ravenscroft 2019)
Yinka Ilori creates a lot of colourful and playfilled spaces. Some aimed at children like this lego laundrette.(Aouf 2021)
But he also uses colour and play to change everyday environments into something special. He created ‘Happy Street’, a permanent installation on Thessaly Road – a key route between Wandsworth Road and Nine Elms Lane that was previously a “forbidding environment”(Crook 2019).
Ku.Be House of Culture and Movement
https://www.fastcompany.com/3063574/copenhagen-has-a-new-indoor-playground-for-adults
This play space in copenhagen is designed instead of a gym to get people to play for exercise. designed by architecture studios MVRDV and Adept to encourage adults to be more active (Peters 2016).
The space aims to bring the residents of Frederiksberg together and improve their quality of life. Which are two main aims of my project as well.
“What would otherwise be a simple, mindless journey through the building turns into an exploration and discovery of movement. Here it’s you that defines the route, however you want: climbing, sliding, crawling, jumping.”(Frearson 2016)
“spaces where we hint at a use, but which will become entirely user-defined.”(Frearson 2016).
I like this idea of hinting at a use for a space but allowing people to define their own play within the space. I think hitting the balance of this perfectly is what will create a really successful outcome. Users need enough of an idea of how to use a space to allow them to feel comfortable and understand what they are doing there, but also enough freedom to allow playful creativity to take root .
EcoLogicStudio – AirBubble
This research led me to this air purified playscape, which uses algae to purify the air within the playground. An added bonus for this is “the bubbling of the bioreactors creates a calming white noise that masks the sounds of the city beyond.” (Aouf 2021b).
This makes me consider the additional aspects that create a positive atmosphere for play, such as location, sound and even the air itself.
Play Therapy
Play therapy allows children and adults to express difficult thoughts and feelings. It can be used to help them to process difficult events. Playing helps them to unwind and destress (Healthline 2021).
I’ve looked previously at how play can help children in traumatic situations to build resilience and cope. I believe that play then can also help adults to process the negative emotions experienced during the pandemic and move forwards past them.
Why Play?
Play serves as a way for children to practice skills they will need in the future.
Free play “is critical for becoming socially adept, coping with stress and building cognitive skills such as problem solving” (The Serious Need for Play, 2009).
“a lack of opportunities for unstructured, imaginative play can keep children from growing into happy, well-adjusted adults. “Free play,” as scientists call it, is critical for becoming socially adept, coping with stress and building cognitive skills such as problem solving.“ (Moyer 2013)
“Play also promotes the continued mental and physical wellbeing of adults”
It seems that free play is very important for children to develop into well adjusted adults. Structured play has it place and this article mentions it may be more beneficial for creating connections, but free play is creative and helps the brain to develop. “creative aspect is key because it challenges the developing brain more than following predetermined rules does.”
“ free play is most similar to play seen in the animal kingdom, suggesting that it has important evolutionary roots”
Gordon M. Burghardt spent 18 years observing animals for his book The Genesis of Animal Play and defined play as repetitive, voluntary and initiated in a relaxed setting. It should also not have a clear goal.
The article discusses the social implications of not playing, but it is unclear as to whether it is the lack of play or the lack of social interaction that weakens social connections.
Without play, adults may end up getting burned out from the “hustle-bustle busyness that we all get involved in,” says Marc Bekoff, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
How to get adults to play?
Stuart Brown, psychiatrist and founder of the National Institute for Play in Carmel Valley, Calif., suggests three ways:
Body play: Participate in some form of active movement that has no time pressures or expected outcome (if you are exercising just to burn fat, that is not play!).
Object play Use your hands to create something you enjoy (it can be anything; again, there doesn’t have to be a specific goal).
Social play Join other people in seemingly purposeless social activities, “from small talk to verbal jousting,” Brown suggests.
“Ultimately, what matters is not how you play but that you play” (Moyer 2013).
Potential project directions to explore visually.
Playscapes that inspire interaction.
Children inspiring play for adults
Exploring how the everyday can be playful.
The use of colour in creating a playful atmosphere.
Reference list
AOUF, Rima Sabina. 2021a. “Yinka Ilori Builds Colourful Lego Launderette in East London.” Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2021/10/28/yinka-ilori-lego-launderette-of-dreams-east-london/.
AOUF, Rima Sabina. 2021b. “Algae-Filled AirBubble by EcoLogicStudio Purifies the Air as Children Play.” Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2021/09/27/algae-filled-airbubble-ecologicstudio-purifies-air-design-architecture/.
CROOK, Lizzie. 2019. “Yinka Ilori Transforms ‘Forbidding’ London Bridge into Happy Street Installation.” Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/07/18/yinka-ilori-thessaly-road-happy-street-installation-london/.
FREARSON, Amy. 2016. “MVRDV and Adept Team up on Community Centre That Invites Grownups to Play.” Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2016/09/02/ku-be-community-centre-mvrdv-adept-frederiksberg-copenhagen-mazes-slides-nets-climbing-walls/ [accessed 1 Mar 2022].
HEALTHLINE. 2021. “Play Therapy: What Is It, How It Works, and Techniques.” Healthline [online]. Available at: https://www.healthline.com/health/play-therapy#summary.
MOYER, Melinda Wenner. 2013. “The Serious Need for Play.” Scientific American 23(1s), 78–85.
PETERS, Adele. 2016. “Copenhagen Has a New Indoor Playground for Adults.” Fast Company [online]. Available at: https://www.fastcompany.com/3063574/copenhagen-has-a-new-indoor-playground-for-adults [accessed 1 Mar 2022].
RAVENSCROFT, Tom. 2019. “Yinka Ilori Covers Adult Playground in Pinterest’s Most Pinned Colours at Cannes Lions.” Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/06/21/yinka-ilori-playground-pinterest-cannes-lions/.
Lizzie Wa Design 
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