A live brief for public architecture studio: We Made That. We have been exploring the childs perspective in the 15min city and the ways play can be encouraged and made inclusive in urban spaces.

We have produced a childish imitation of the Mayor of London guide on making london child friendly. We did for ourselves to develop a childish perspectives. It applies our ideas to the 15min city that our whole group is familiar with - New Cross. From walking and living in New Cross we have begun to produce alternative/speculative ways to access and intervene in the city by putting play first.

These were speculative research tools for a childish tool box. Using our childish tools we'd want to begin to navigate and explore the city in forgotten ways, and free the child from the adult purpose or scale. We, as adults, try and take on the role of the child architectural consultant and describe the ways in which we access the city, what we see excluding play and the ways we'd want to enable broader play. This has produced ideas of a greater association and imagination but also what could be seen as absurd, dangerous or disfunctional, but the value in the ideas of our toolbox research was the consideration of an othered community, that of children, who are represented, perhaps, poorly as they are so often dismissed as incapable until they become adults. Any real world realisations would benefit from their perspective.

A childish Manifesto.

NOTES

Establishing a crack team/advisory board of creative child consultants to supervise and aid the re-imagining of urban development and planning. Their job? To bridge the gap between adults and children, reality and imagination. what kind of experience would a child want in an adult space?  A child's materials in construction, alternatives and compromises from the natural concrete and steel beams, bring into urban space new energy and perspective. Realising a child's idea of an adult space allows us to question our preconceived ideas of scale in architecture, and allows us to consider improvements that children would imagine in our urban landscape.

don't worry, you'll grow into it.

You are a child, the crick in your neck is all you've ever known. you look up, on your tip toes and look across. You revere the top floor elevator button, lunge for the gratifyly acheivable traffic light button, clear the gate, you leap, you climb, you traverse the tower-block dining chairs and summit the highrise countertops, to investigate the illusive sky-scraping kitchen cupboards. Clambering, tumbling, ascending, enter through the arched legs of the table, and throne yourself on a chest high foot stool. 

Children don't belong in big people places, they are not welcome. If they were, then we'd see more toddlers brunching or gyming infants, I don't expext to be queuing behind a line of avid adolecent bankers. Children want to play and they want to explore, they dont't want to do big poeple things and they don't need to. A child in a gym will see something other than a gym, they will see an assault course, a jungle, or an airplane. In a cafe, they will be in a city, the tables become the houses and the ailes and between, a race track.

As adults, our memories and thought proccesses become so developed and defined that we see only what is, rather than what could be, and we limit of assosiative capacity to what is imediately relevant and block out broader interpretation. In the street, I will see a Volvo and it will remind me of A Skoda. In the street, a child will see a car and be reminded of a big fat elephant. Children's networks of associatation and methods of definement are so fresh that they recognise familiarirties much broader than an adult. To an infant with a limited language capacity, a cricket is a little singing man, this is perhaps laughable, but in reality speaks more meaning and reveals how the child is making sense of the world in a descriptive, effective and playful manner.

As we get older we get "stuck in our ways". Perhaps we have made sense of the world, completed our understanding and are now resigned to production and expanding the collective pool of knowlegde, our perhaps we give up and believe we will never truely make sense of it, so whats the point! I believe we should continue, continue in the same manner as we did as children to make sense of the world in new and inventive ways. 

What does the Neufert Architects data guide have on children and their measurements? ....... Nothing? To be fair, it is absurd to consider the anthropometices of a child, to start, how big is a child? (insert clip) a child is not big, or small, at least not to themselves, before the age of 00 they barely understand the space they occupy, only later do they understand how they can ostruct, weigh down and fill objects. Children are constantly changing in shape, and they themselves see no scale to objects, knowing they are themselves definitly the wrong size in relation to anything. They hold no standard to the size and ergonomic porportions of an object, they simply do not care if it is "for children's use", they are not yet intuitively worried about if they fit in and about their place in the world, they just want to use it, explore it in relation to everything. 

They want to explore it and discover through themselves by the act of play, the free chosen, personally directed, and intrinsically motivated sets of behaviour. 
Or 
As, in the words of Arthur battram, the act in which "we become human". As play is this initially pre verbal universal language of education informing who we are.

We can turn to the example of snow, through this physical occursnce, play is enacted and snow is forged in the eye of the beholder and new means through play is born, putting children and play at the centre whilst creating community.

This expressed more poetically by the world of Aldo Van Eyke :

To consider the city is to encounter ourselves.
To encounter the city is to rediscover the child.
If the child rediscovers the city,
the city will rediscover the child – ourselves.
LOOK SNOW! 
A miraculous trick of the skies – a fleeting correction.
All at once the child is Lord of the City.
But the joy of gathering snow off paralyzed vehicles is short-lived. 
Provide something for the human child more permanent than snow – if perhaps less abundant. 
Another miracle.

Let me show you the absurdity of Kdzania. A experience offered to children to pretend to be adults, being a paramedic, shopkeeper, bus driver, in a town with scaled down. To a child in this place, the scale is all wrong, How are they to make sense of anything here if its all the wrong size to real life? Therefore, a child size house, with functioning child size objects in it, would be less interesting and benefitial than an ordinary one, a play house simply stands in for the use of an ordinary one and perhaps gives the child an oportunity of playing the actor of an adult, when in reality, children can make their own house out of a cardboard box and it play the same role and offer a more adaptive and comprehensive experience. Kidzania is an adults perspective placed upon a child.

Emphasise on readying a child for the adult world when they should be haivng fun.

James Gibson describes how objects and environments offer affordances to the animal, the animal being conciously capable of using an object for a perpose. For example water affords drinking, a cup affords scooping water, a rough texture affords us grip to stand. the afordance of the objects to the child are different. the adult scale allows no parralel affordances to the child. we can look at the affordances that children can see and experience, they see open function and flexibility in everything.
introduced to a site, learn how to do it, the affordance of going up a slide, open to interpretation. the affordance of a glass, to be able to hold it, is afforded only to an adult with a hand great enoguh to grasp and  grip it. \This aff
(playkx, penny wilson)

                

What is amazing, I have found, is the child's perspective. The perspective is of the real world, wanting to move through it without any worry of fitting into it(shape, size and role) yet, and with a capcity to seek to understand in many different ways.

To better understand size and scale, the difference in experience that children and adults have as the move through the city, we can develop tools, such as this tool, from a previous project, which enables a visual perspective form the height of a child. 
Another tool we can seculate on is bound to time. 20 minutes is a long time for a child. To us, memories are smaller in perspective as we get older and collect more. A child experiences time on a different scale and feel each moment as being much more loaded with experience. Perhaps we can experience a morning as a child if we dedicate an entire day to it. Or perhaps we should consider and record more of what we do during a small amount of time - such as using door handles, sitting on chairs and turning the lights on, moments which are far more engaging for a child - and see what we can discover.

If we could find a new way to move through the city in consideration of the perspective of a child, we can avoid adult conventions. Children move through space without any worry of fitting into it(shape, size and role) yet, and with a capacity to seek to understand in many different ways without scale. If as adults we turn off our filter of "order and function", perhaps we can better understand the world around us and discover new things. 

Nick Papadimitriou, a writer, goes beyond a normal perspective of the urban landscape, purposely moving through it obscurely to unlock and better understand it's psychogeography.

I think Pyschogeography can be a key word here, because what we are doing is connecting to our urban landscape through the medium of the child mind. Finding a way to access the structures of our surroundings in at a new and different height.

Have you read Charlie and Lola? Lauren Child writes from the perspective of a little girl, she has found a way to channel a different age, an alter-adolecent-ego, and produce something enlightening. Children understand her completely but adults read here writing and have no idea whats good about it. 

I think this access to the alter-adolecent-ego can begin to influence our research practice into the 15-minute city. I'm thinking of developing a "childish pyschogeography" as a way to perform the role of a child accessing and attempting to understand the urban landscape. It would utilise a flat ontology of associations to relate and structure my experience, from the mundane to the colossal. The product would be a new perspective, aternative to my own and easily understood by its intention.

No ball games, what does that say?

These are attempts to visualise and speculate the tools of our childish tool box. Using our childish tool we can begin to navigate and explore the city in a forgotten way, and free the child from the adult purpose or scale. This can be by having the objects of the city offer broader affordances, as an adult we can access the sight of the child, and the child can access broader and more inclusive play.
We are planning to create a toolbox Zine of alternative/speculative ways to access and intervene in the city by putting play first.

We need a manifesto,  set of principles.

we, as adults, want to access the childs perspect and bring play back. but we are in the city, we have jobs
the must not be self awareness, and must be embarrasing
look at elements that defy play, and remove play.
adding to allow play, or removing what blocks play.
access tool to nagotiate what is there.

cognisant of not over rationalising.

hatty
Playing with the recognisable and the scale, what people expect and what people don't, a child won't be suprise by a pencil, an adult will be supprised by the signs. interventions that adapt the failures of the city for the imagination of the child, the pddles and trampoline pot holes. 

elliot
city forms that merge the city and the movements of t he child. Creating a playcape that accomodates all ages and is engaging for many.

john
Enabling the naibourhood, infant-adult emulsion of, centring and pulling, a communitycentre through play and imagination, accomodating the meeting of a social group through childish intervention. facilitating the pressence of people 
                

the manifesto is showing the stretch of our application 
a share visual language that reads as a team proposal that belongs together, 

activating these two aproaches, accomodating play where it is not welcome, and accessing how a child plays anywhere already. 

allowing something to make these aesthetic decisions for us 

too open of what these represent, made of, belongs to 

we are the  children town planners, we give you play, we give you give yourself play

adult de-discovery of play.

structure, describe what we want to be reality using our examples. 15min city, social value of the child.
                

the signs represent(in an adult language) child subvert the limits of the city(ignoring the no ball games sign) a child will find a way to play despite. i as an adult, as a designer can see this negotiation between the child and the city through the sign. the city and the child negotiate in a different way than the adult. this discussion can be three ways though, between the adult, city and child. these architectures activate play, the dult activates the city for the child. it is a three way language.

An adult notices aspects of the city in the established manner. For example, a warning sign alerts the adult of danger, The design of the sign intends to be recognisable, authoritative and understandable.

A child notices different aspects, because of differences in scale; which means a sign could be too big or too high up; but also signs are meant for adults and children are told not to worry about them. They generally are informed by recognisable forms in different objects, and they can use this in play with their imagination. This differs from adults by its neglect of the order and function of urban geography, using it in unintended ways.

When a child sees a "no ball games" sign, they enter into this adult way of seeing the city. They become informed by the signs intentions, which are directly for them. The child is affected by the city in equal manner as the adult, but it is also in detriment to their wants and intentions. The adult will happily "play ball games" elsewhere but child will feel interrupted and discouraged.


These signs flip this detrimental design negative. The sign becomes a prompt to play, the adult becomes the child, the urban geography welcomes the child, and everyone is in better perspective of each other.

play in the city can be  encouraged through this realisation of subvertive approach. how can we construct play that levels out this negotiation and makes the city into a play zone, one that is readily negotiated. 
                    

                        
The value iI see in the Children city planners is in the unsuccessful and, some would say, dishonest attempt of us, as adults, trying to become children to access some sort of alternative and enlightening perspective of the world. Like enjoying watching Artaudian theatre, it is entertaining. The publication was easy to describe and the value in it was easily explained, but if you read it, it made no sense what so ever. This was the interesting part of the project for me because it offered something confusing, provoking and absurd. the idea of adult becoming child to do an adult job but as a child, what were we thinking?

I remeber doing a drama excercise in school, a bit like this clip in mean girls, a very theatre kid exercise, we become 5 year olds adn have to interact with others who act 50 years old. the ones acting 50 would act barely different to themselves despite us being 16, and the 5 year olds would change by most sense "rationally", they become irrational. you always think of yourself as rational, therefore its hard to imagine becoming more rational, hence the behaviour of the 50 year olds. the change in the 5 year olds behaviour could be summed up as "annoying". I'm afraid i dont have a child to comepare to, but i think there is more to them than being annoying and irrationality. 

A child is not big, or small, at least not to themselves, before the age of 5 they barely understand the space they occupy, only later do they understand how they can ostruct, weigh down and fill objects. Children are constantly changing in shape, and they themselves see no scale to objects, knowing they are themselves definitly the wrong size in relation to anything. They hold no standard to the size and ergonomic porportions of an object, they simply do not care if it is "for children's use", they are not yet intuitively worried about if they fit in and about their place in the world, they just want to use it, explore it in relation to everything. 

This I wrote originally to involve a consideration in our designs for the way a child IS in the world, but I think there is an interesting propostition in trying and use this in becoming the child, and an alternative internal perspective for us as adults, one that is less targetted at a search for utility and consumption, self-centred oriented design. Adults have fully formed ideas of the world and becoming the child could help reform existing ideas in a different way. I'm suggesting this as a potential tool for less human centric design, an absurd method perhaps.

I think this access to the alter-adolecent-ego can begin to influence our 15-minute city. I'm thinking of developing a "childish pyschogeography" as a way to perform the role of a child accessing and attempting to understand the urban landscape. It would utilise a flat ontology of associations to relate and structure my experience, from the mundane to the colossal. The product would be a new perspective, aternative to my own and easily understood by its intention.

Have you read Charlie and Lola? Lauren Child writes from the perspective of a little girl, she has found a way to channel a different age, an alter-adolecent-ego, and produce something enlightening. Children understand her completely but adults read here writing and have no idea whats good about it. 

nick papadimitrou is a psychogeographer who i would say, acts like a child. Perhaps they all move in this way, but having witnessed him move through the city like in the docu, I know that hes a bit childish, the gleam in his eye, the excitable demeaner of discovery, he, i believe, has access or retained a childish sensability of discovery and adventure and this he has channelled into his work.

provokes thought in such ways...

remembering being made to send a postcard to my grandparents while on holiday and trying to describe the experience with limited capability. I'm of a generation to experience this practice's death as i have matured, in my head i associate postcard giving with being a child, a physical memento, a piece of paper, a transfer of experience that has value enough to be transported by physical infrastructure. childish psychogeography postcards?

play kx, - Adults dont play.

Does this become nostalgia for childhood. is that the only value in adult play? 

we justified our work without discovering the answer to this question through the ideas of accessability and awareness of play in the city. The adult can see play, which allows a better consideration of the child in the city and the way they move throughout the city. but we never really knew what the adult perspective of play was, or if it was possible.

I think it is possible through the charlie and lola manufacturing of a perspective. Which is why I've begun a practice of writing and experiencing a place throught the language of a child, to see if it is an accessible and enlightening thing to do. Whiel staying in manchester I studied Oxford road between the station and Whitworth Park.

I think there is value in this experimentation, even if it is completely unsuccessful. Maybe the value comes purely from the narrative and fiction it creates but it wasn't worth dismissing the idea of an attempt to become a child because of falsifying perspectives.

There is a horror in the switching of roles, adult and child. When I was a child I remeber watching a show called Big Kids. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable, anxious, mortified, watching an adult act a child and the children having to take on the responsibility to manage them, it was my worst nightmare. 

You can wonder, therefore, if this exercise is self defeating because of the obvious "adults are meant to be mature". The Lars Von Trier film "Les Idiots" has something of a similar concept, a group of anti-establishent people act innapropriately as though being mentally challenged as a self-defeating attempt by the group to challenge the establishment through provocation. The self-styled idiots feel that the society-at-large treats their intelligence uncreatively and unchallengingly and they seek the uninhibited self-expression that they imagine a romantic ideal of disability will allow.