throughout interviews, we learned that:
- parents are incredibly resourceful in creating play in and out of the playground for their children.
- parents universally agree playgrounds are a core part of child development
- parental concerns on playgrounds often lie in their children being physically harmed, bullied, or being out of sight; not on the dangers of contracting COVID-19 as we originally thought
- Parents living in the suburbs find playgrounds being a shared space with adults creepy; parents in cities are familiar with the overlapping use of spaces
We were also given tons of suggestions (often conflicting!) for essential aspects of the playground both for play and social distancing. It was universally agreed upon that trying to force children to be socially distanced is impossible. The only way to separate children is to have repeated play objects spread apart.
We need to design a solution for this situation.
Throughout interviews with parents, we create persona and user journey map for our playground experience:
A playground seems like a simple concept at first glance. Plop a couple slides and swings on some dirt and "Voila!" It's much more involved. Every detail has to be considered.
Then, Some questions we needed to ask ourselves:
- Where would this playground go?
- What ages is it for?
- Is there a theme? What is it?
- What do children actually like about playgrounds?
- Is there a system to orient the playground design around? What is it?
All of these don't even consider measures for social distancing.
We started by brainstorming all the different themes we could focus on for the playground. Of the over 100 ideas we came up with, we began narrowing down to: Nature, Space, LEGOs, Animals, History, Careers, Music, and Time Travel.
Then, we did some sketches aligning the value of "providing interactivity and socialization while upholding social distancing."
We also need to decide the system to orient the playground.
We narrowed down all ideas into 3 systems: Treehouse, Spaceship and Honeycomb, and create storyboards.
In order to finally decide our system, we wrote out pros and cons about each systems.
From here, we decided to use Honeycomb as grid for the system. In this way, we can make the side of the hexagonal grid into 6ft and place different amount of the grid together depends on the size of the field.
From the brainstorming, we decided to do 7 individual recreation facilities and multiple parent resting areas to hold on different hexagonal grid.
Wants slide, net climbing, rock climbing, marble run all in one place? The Arrival House has all the kids want! Inspired by the spaceship in Arrival, Arrival House encompasses the desire to "play house." It is like the starting point of this adventure through nature. Kids can take a rest in the under area playing with the marble to let it run from top to bottom. When kids are ready, get on the top area and slide down, your adventure begins!
The Arrival House is designed into two parts. The top area is a linear run-through. Kids can climb up and slide down. The bottom area allows two kids to play at the same time during the covid pandemic, carefully divided by plexiglass dividers. Kids can interact through the marble run spinner in the middle. There are holes on both the plexiglass and the steel deck to allow more airflow.
Inspired by Tarzan, Tarzan encompasses the freedom of "gliding through trees." Low platforms, rings, zipline and monkey bars provide the experience of climbing trees with the stability of modern playground structures. It is the second stop of the adventure through nature.
This simple play structure features our design philosophy of multiplicity, allowing multiple children to experience climbing from tree to tree, in a joint experience, at safe distances from each other. This structure also further features our other design philosophy of modularity. The red climbing pieces, monkey bars, ring bars and a zipline, serve as a type of ‘connector’ piece that connects two platforms, which are like ‘anchor’ pieces. In this way, the Tarzan island can be built with a varying number of hexagons, and changed into any form that a given space allows.
Discover what lurks in the shadows! Swings and drawbridges stand as props to allow the imagination to soar. Perhaps you’ll have to use rope swings to cross moats or gaping holes. Maybe you will discover secrets, hidden under old passageways. The adventure awaits!
This structure is another one featuring our design philosophy of modularity, similar to that of the Tarzan island. In fact, note the similarity between the pieces of this island and the connector and platform pieces provided by Tarzan. This island was also designed with accessibility in mind, allowing disabled chidlren in wheelchairs or crutches to make use the bridge, both on top and beneath, and the ramp (on the platform behind).
How can our nature adventure not have water? Freedom through flight. Reach the tallest towers and swing over the trees themselves in this immersive space with swings in all shapes and sizes and sprinklers for the warmest days.
Swingland is your third stop! Wash off your exhausted here. This island contains two normal swing, one tire swing, two spring animals and one sprinkler area. These facilities are spaced out in three hexagons which kids can play at safe distances from each other.
The Maze is a great place for kids who love escape rooms. It is a one-way obstacle journey which kids enter from the entrance and can climb up and down to find ways to exit. Having LED lights indicate the entrance, the exit part is also formed with a slide which is hard for kids to enter in the wrong direction.
Getting feedback from user testing, parents are worried about an enclosed maze structure in which they cannot see their kids. So the maze is an open-up structure with punched holes on the wall which creates airflow that is necessary during the pandemic and also easier for parents to look out for their kids.
The maze is about 4 hexagons in size which is spaced out. kids can start entering the maze when others are in the middle of finishing up the journey.
"The Symplegades or Clashing Rocks, also known as the Cyanean Rocks, were, according to Greek mythology, a pair of rocks at the Bosphorus that clashed together whenever a vessel went through. They were defeated by Jason and the Argonauts, who would have been lost and killed by the rocks except for Phineus' advice"
The Crashing Mountain is your sixth stop, mimicking the Cyanean Rocks obstacle. Experience the same fraught journey Jason and the Argonauts endured to retrieve the Golden Fleece. These draw bridges are constantly trying to reach each other and squish unsuspecting boats. So hurry up! Kids will experience with wooden bridge and climbing rock here. What if they fall off? No worries, the soft faux leather mat has their backs.
Who does not want a treehouse? A place for you to feel the breeze of the wind and to listen to the birds. As the final stop for our adventure through nature, the Treehouse is designed for kids to take a rest and feel the nature in the city. Containing both straight and spiral slide, tire, and wooden climb, the Treehouse is also divided into three sections by plexiglass dividers, which allows multiple kids to play at the same time during this covid pandemic.
This island follows the idea of interaction while practicing safety guidelines. Different from a traditional treehouse, The Treehouse is fully exposed to the air for maximum circulation. Each section has its play objects so kids can play by themselves or interact with each other through the plexiglass dividers.
Children are not the only ones who benefit from play spaces. Parents and caretakers are just important as users of the space! We know that you as guardians have your hands full, so we designed a space specifically for you. This ‘parent island’ is elevated and has 360 degrees of seating to provide the best visibility possible for you to watch your child. The removable plexiglass dividers allow for the following of COVID safety guidelines without interfering with visibility. And the ramps and railings are made for ease of accessibility and stroller usage. So have a seat, rest your legs, and keep an eye on your children all from the comfort and safety of the parent island.
A key distinguishing of our playground from others is its flexibility to work during COVID or post-COVID, in a small middle-of-the-city park or a large empty space in the suburbs. To accomplish this flexibility, we’ve designed our playground with modularity in mind. Our playground is a collection of “islands” that can be configured and re-configured as desired on a hexagonal grid. Coupled, is our other key design principle of multiplicity. By making the same experience available in multiple places, kids can share experiences from a safe distance, and not feel the need to crowd into the only space available for an activity there is to do.
We then moved into 3D modeling process. We used Fusion 360 and Blender. Autodesk Fusion 360 is the industry standard for collaborative 3D modeling software and Blender has UV unwrapping which is good for adding materials image to models.
Round 1 - ExpertExpert: Architect, with background in modularity
Feedback Highlights:
- Airflow can be improved in areas in the maze and arrival house. Adding windows can help or potentially adjust the space to afford movement
- Plexiglass poses potential issues with safety if the kids are running around; consider decorating with murals or games to visually indicate a barrier is there
- Crashing mountain island poses COVID and regular safety concerns because of the way kids move on the structure, and the bottom of the climbing wall is not soft
Round 2 - UsersMethod: Primarily remote testing via video conferencing
Tools: Arki (Augmented Reality), Zoom
Originally we were thinking about making 3D prints and bring them to people for user testing. But because of the covid pandemic, it creates difficulties for offline user testing. So we use to create AR for usertesting.
Video walkthrough of our playground using Arki.
Users: 6 total children, ages 3-11.
Feedback Highlights:
- Safety concerns regarding materials used and the scale of structures (Note: scale was a little bit lost in translation through augmented reality)
- Better idea about which islands seem the most fun; suggestions for improving the slides to swirly slides for increasing fun
- The extra space and multiplicity was noticable but did not take away from the fun of the structures
After 3D modeling, we moved into visual and material design. We first created a moodboard which we picked out the colors that will be used on our playground.
For more details about each materials and playground policy, visit Playground materials and safety
Then we added material to models in Blender.
To better showcase our models, we rendered each individual model directly in blender. We added a hdr background and adjusted the light to create shadows on the models.
Video rendering provided to be a challenge, as our complex environment paired with proper light treatments took roughly 2-3 minutes per frame out of a total 3000+ frames. So we settled for very minimal settings, to make sure the entire animation was at least rendered to some degree.
For the filament, we use a Tri color changing with temperature PLA filamentThis serves the purpose of the thermochromic coating of our playground's material. Kids and parents can tell if a place is recently contacted by others and can create safety interaction.
If you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!
Kat_dy12@outlook.com