Photo: Mihail Novakov, EDNO Magazine

We hadn’t organized a workshop so far. The Children Playground Workshop at Sofia Architecture Week 2011 was our first one. It turned out not that difficult and a fun.

Lazy though we are, we made some efforts before — made a site, launched an online survey and started mailing to our American friend and co-organizer Thomas Kong, an architect, a Professor and a father.

How We Started

Children playgrounds in Sofia irritate us to extremes (especially after we started using them as parents). Yes, they are insufficient number, they are dirty and of low quality, but that’s not the worst. After long and tiresome discussions and after we analyzed the play of our children, of our neighbours’ children, of the cousin’s and of Thomas Kong’s in Chicago, we decided that the main problem is that children playgrounds are boring.

In the 60s and 70s playgrounds were experimental field for cult figures among architects and designers, but after contemporary safety regulations were set, suddenly the play spaces were restricted to several uniform (and usually factory-made) equipments over rubber flooring with impeccable safety ISO.

Playable sculptures from the 60s. Similar to them are the so familiar in Bulgaria concrete turtles with holes.

And this happens all around the world, not only in Bulgaria. But especially in Bulgaria because it’s the easiest.

Factory-made and certified children playgound equipment in USA and Bulgaria. There is only minimal difference.

The Survey

The survey we addressed to the parents and launched it 2 weeks before the workshop. It was filled in by 384 parents. The results turned out so intriguing that we decided to take them out in a separate post (expect soon). So far we’ve showed them only to the participants in the workshop (before they srated work).

There was one opinion in the survey: Why every newly-built children playground is just a square with a fence? This standard way to do everything is certainly not the best for our children and their education.

Then Thomas Kong told us about the informal children play in the big city and sent us pictures from Chicago. And everything fitted in.

The Participants

We invited architects, designers, landscape architects, but also parents who are not “in the business”. For several hours we wanted to get together users and professionals and make them play “creative” in several teams.

The Program

We decided to set the following task: make a standard formal playground by using the informal, spontaneous play of children — e.g. stepping on shafts?, climbing on crooked tree branches, balancing on curbes, shoveling fallen leaves, jumping on tree logs, etc

We picked three children playgrounds (neglected) in Sofia which cover three main types:

• small playground in the centre of the city (Doktorskata Garden)
• playground in a park (Borisovata Garden)
• playground in a panel residential complex (between the apartment blocks in Druzhba 2)

The task? had two main points which can be summarized as follows:

1. Make a list of plays you’ve seen children spontaneously do outside the playground (jumping in puddles, walking on curbes, etc)
2. Following the list, try to create a play-scape (not just a play-ground) on one of the selected sites

Present your ideas by sketches and text.

The Workshop

We were very happy with the people who came — they were positive, made good teams, created nice playgrounds. There were architect/designer-mothers, “pure” architects and designers and “pure” parents (according ot our slang).

The participants. Photo: Mihail Novakov, EDNO Magazine

Thomas Photo: Mihail Novakov, EDNO Magazineно

The children on their turn formed such a nice improvized playground by cardboard boxes which proved that the ideal children playground indeed doesn’t need to cost a million bucks and still be fun for 4-5 hours

The Results

Here what we had in the end:

Doktorskata Garden

This playground is difficult — small, many passers-by, the old equipment removed as dangerous and only one sandpit is left.

The design of the team which worked on it included:

• wooden climbing platform, suspended so as to let children pass below
• amphitheater with wooden logs for climbing and sitting on as well as holes for hiding (inspired by the amphitheater in front of the Planinarska Pesen mountain hut at Vitosha which is indeed cool and children adore it)
• main things to do with this structure — hiding, climbing, swinging. Yet it can also be used for shade in the summer. To sum up — a clever and functional thing.

Borisovata Garden

This playground at Boprisovata Graden (where there are more playgrounds and more popular) is so unknown it can be defined as underground. Yet it is big, sunny, with enough trees and useful remains from the socialist landscape design like artificial hills, a hole, one wooden camel-slide and several shattered wooden dogs.

Two teams chose to work on this one. Both made use of the existing structures and even upgraded them. Which only comes to prove that a flat, fenced playground is far from desirable.

Option 1 Play with senses:

• play with water with surprise elements
• play with the different scale of the playground equipment — child scale, hyperbolized scale, etc
• musical instruments – xylophone with legs and similar
• play integrated in flooring
• play with light

Option 2 A Trip around the world for children:

• a desert — created aroud the camel and the existing semi-circle hill in the terrain. There will be a sandpit, puddles-oases and other attractions
• volcano — around the existing hill. There will be different kinds of flooring, slides, places for bare-foot walking and climbing
• a jungle — with rope park for climbing and swings in a separate, fenced place
• a wall for drawing — with exotic plants and animals
• animals for riding — around the existing dogs
• an Arctic ocean (for children over 12 years) — water feature with structures for jumping, climbing and moving

Druzhba 2

Tha playground in Druzhba 2 Quarter is typical for the panel housing establishments in Bulgaria — rectangular, surrounded by trees. But it is very big, sunny and the trees are grown enough.

The design decision was a funny and cheap play with the terrain:

• by excavating and piling up of the terrain different play and age zones are formed — a concave zone with logs for the smallest children, holes in artificial hills with ropes for climbing, a skateboard zone, labyrinth with places to walk on curbes, balancing and hiding
• am orchard with tomatoes, parsley, etc — with educational purpose, but also to fit in the typology of the panel complex
• different uses of natural resources — lighting features with sun batteries, collection of rain water for watering, etc

The Questions

During the presentations there were passers-by who asked And how will you maintain those playgrounds of yours? And how much will they cost?, Who will risk making them?

These were the questions which provoked us to prove that such design decisions can be realized at low cost and without high maintainance. And provoked us even further to find someone to risk making them.

So we get started. Officially.

If you have ideas how to make the difference with the municipality Green Systems (who are responsible for the children playgrounds in Sofia), don’t hesitate to write. Meanwhile, we will depend on the sound private initiative.