More Ken Robinson

A ted talk by Ken Robinson who talk in the RSA Animate video I posted a while ago. He just has such a brilliantly succinct way of talking and explaining things.

Kilburn Grange Park Adventure Playground

After looking into Noguchi and his Playscape designs I started looking more at modern adventure playgrounds and how architects and artists are tackling the challenge of building them today. I found an article in a magazine called designexchange about an adventure playground in Camden that won the RIBA 2011 award in London and want to go and visit it. It has a key emphasis on educating the children who play in it about the surrounding environment and sustainability. I think its interesting how a play space can be manipulated in this way. Will hopefully have time to go this week and see what its like.

Rocking sheep.

These have been a long time obsession at my work they are rockers made with real sheep skins and are obscenely expensive and amazing. I WANT ONE. Definitely a product that pleases both an excitable child (they go crazy in the shop for these) and nostalgic big people like me.

Architektur fur Kinder

Its a shame my German is so rusty now as this website: http://www.architekturfuerkinder.ch/ seems to have some amazing research and information on it... I think I'm going to be spending a long time on Google translate. It also has a ready made book list of books I haven't heard of but Amazon doesn't seem to stock any at a reasonable price so am going to have to do a search of library's in London..

Isamu Noguchi

1941 design for a playground that was never built in Hyde Park. Noguchi struggled with safety issues as many officials said that his designs were not safe enough for children to play freely on.

Ive been having a look at the 20th century sculpture Isamu Noguchi. A friend from work recommended I look at him as he designed alot of playgrounds and had a very specific view of what children would want from them.

"In other words, the playground, instead of telling the child what to do (swing here, climb there) becomes a place for endless exploration, of endless opportunity for changing play.''

Dibs: In search of self

I read this book on holiday and really enjoyed it. Its the story of a troubled young boy and his play therapy. The way the therapist uses play to let "Dibs" explore his emotions and difficulty's and come to terms with them is interesting. Its kind of part academic diary and part emotional story.

Junk Playgrounds

I have been looking at "Junk Playgrounds" which sprung up after the war in London on bombed out building sites. The idea that these were playgrounds the children created themselves and they had the freedom to use the junk to build their own worlds really inspires me. I think it might provide a really interesting contrast to the playgrounds that have been designed by adults for children as in comparison the play experienced is often more forced...? I'm thinking this is probably going to be a good route to go down for my dissertation as it isn't too psychological but still has scope for me to look at the psychology of play a bit.