Education Commons^™

Making Pla(Y)Ces: Softening The City Through Play, Shivani Pinapotu

Masters Theses

Cities that grow naturally over time integrate spaces of gathering that allow for serendipitous happenstance. However, the cities we design today instruct and codify through intentional planning and design; they assign use, hardening specific function to place. Such strategies lead to spaces devoid of spirit, inculcating in city-dwellers to a sense of disconnect from the city.

In contrast to this, the places we make as children, express our intuitive, direct, and unselfconscious relationships with space and one other. These spaces embody softness through their malleability and adaptability, borrowing from the world around them and imbuing the ordinary with imagination. …

A Playworker’S Musings On The Perceptions And Importance Of ’Mess’ In A Play Space., Angus Ian Gorrie

International Journal of Playwork Practice

The aesthetics of any given play environment is often subject to immense scrutiny, often at the behest of adult agendas. This paper will, from a playwork practitioner’s perspective, discuss how aspects of perceptive mess in a play space positively affect play, the physical opportunities for children, their wellbeing, sense of belonging and their ability to create a sense of order as they see it. This will be juxtaposed against the situations in which children find themselves, by adult design, that paradoxically have the opposite effect. The author has drawn heavily from aspects of playwork theory and practice in the development …

Playground And Garden Design: Troy Christian Early Childhood Education Center, Gabriella Spatz

Honors Projects

The following project is a result of a study of the existing playground and garden at Troy Christian Early Childhood Education Center (TC ECEC) in Troy, OH. The TC ECEC Director wanted research, marketing standpoints, and a re-design for their playground and garden which led to an academic and professional collaboration that crosses into multiple project typologies. The Director consulted with the researcher, Gabriella Spatz, to create a list of necessary inclusions in both spaces which led to proposed floor plans and visuals of the playground and garden respectively. The designs sought to answer two research questions:

1. “What playground and …