“I would be really framing a lot of my conversations about this… about the long-term health and wellbeing and prospects of our youngest citizens.”

“Insight for politicians, anyone who's listening to this who wants to kind of shift the needle on creating more sustainable neighborhoods. Talk about children, talk with children, get children's views into the conversation, and that will help you have a more concrete vision of what direction you need to be going in.”

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Join Boopsie Maran and Bea Enriquez in conversation with Tim Gill author of Urban Playground, How Child-Friendly Urban Planning and Design can save Cities

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Episode Notes:

“The municipalities hold most of the levers of power. Of course, what they do is shaped by the central government, and there are messages here for, for the central government as well. But, there's a lot that any municipality can do if they want to. And so the hub and spoke model, It really was what I was seeing when I visited these cities that were doing good things and in lots of cases … What was the catalyst for change? It was an officer, it was one or maybe more than one person in the municipality who took up this issue. Who said to themselves, I'm going to try and make good things happen for kids. And I'm in a position to do that.”

So just like that.. Enter the mayor of Tirana, Albania: Erion Velia.  The mayor of Tirana decided to structure his vision for urban change around children.

“Norway is one of the few countries where it's written into law that children's views and concerns have to be taken into account in planning. So, you know, every municipality has to show that it does that.” 

It is because of this policy that in order to respond to parent’s fears and tackle traffic issues head on, Oslo created a pioneering app, “The Traffic Agent.”  The app  provides “child’s eye” feedback to enable both real time and long term improvements in road maintenance and infrastructure planning. 

“On a simple level, in the app kids could say to the transport team, oh, you know, there's this bush and it's just growing too big and it needs to be trimmed down, and by that afternoon it had been done. The result is simple because they just sent somebody out to do it. But, then for more complicated issues like traffic junctions or you know, badly planned routes, the people in the highest department could then put it into their longer term planning. To say, oh, you know, this junction is really important for children.”

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"It's only where you've got both a lot of choice of places and things to do and go, and it's very easy for children to get around on foot or by bike. It's only where you've got both of those, that you're in that child-friendly spot or quadrant.”

 We do live everywhere in cities that have basically been designed around the needs of the car for the last a hundred years. And it takes energy and commitment and actually courage to turn that around.

And that's why we are seeing some pushback around some of these ideas

Focus on the streets where people live

Think about life from the point of view of a child, the streets are the beginning of our literal and figurative journeys. Have programs that change the way people think about streets, encourage children to walk, cycle, and create a safe place for play.

Useful Links & References:

https://rethinkingchildhood.com/urban-playground/

Read the first 20 pages from Tim Gill's new book 'Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities.'  Courtesy of the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

Show Credits:

Music by:  Max Epstein

Sound Engineering and Editing by: Andy Day

https://www.handytrainingonline.com/audio-laundry

-The case of Play Africa, "Our Ideal World"

A conversation on Design Thinking with Children approach, and how their work supports creativity while empowering them with a problem solving tool they can apply in many areas of their lives.

Our Guest :

Zviko Kanyoka is a Project Manager for placemaking programmes at Play Africa with a background in architecture. Her work is driven by her passion for supporting children’s right to the city through participatory development and by exploring the intersections of child development and the built environment.

Project Description:

“Our Ideal World” is a flexible, adaptable workshop that was designed by Play Africa for children between the

ages of 7 and 12, teaching creative problem solving.  It was developed in collaboration with local and international

design thinking experts, to create customized design thinking approach that helps children understand social challenges, and how to generate, 

prototype and test possible solutions that can be shared more widely.  In addition to providing a powerful opportunity to engage

with local neighbourhood challenges, throughout the workshop, children learn literacy, problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, and other 

skill sets that develop capabilities in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and the creative arts.

Importantly, children feel seen, heard and valued as adults recognise their creative solutions to real world issues, developing their confidence as 

inventors and innovators with original solutions. Play Africa has gone on to scale this programme broadly.

Link to Play Africa : https://playafrica.org.za/toolkit/

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PLACES WHERE PLAY HEALS PEOPLE

PLACES WHERE PLAY SUPPORTS CLIMATE ACTION

PLACES WHERE PLAY UNITES US ALL

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The Real Play City Challenge awards inspiring cities and urban practitioners that have successfully used placemaking to create environments that give people time, space and opportunities to play. The Real Play City Challenge is an international competition led by the Real PlayCoalition (Arup, Ingka Group [IKEA], The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, and UNICEF) and PlacemakingX (represented by STIPO and Huasipichanga).

Register Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/2022edition 

Apply Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/apply

The case for why it is important to make the connection to places for play and the climate. 

 A conversation on how placemakers can be at the forefront of climate adaptive practice through tapping into their strong sense of community and localised sense of where the opportunities are. 

Our Guest :

Minouche Besters is partner and urbanist at the STIPO team for Urban Development.  Her work focuses on creating better places by among others developing inclusion, strengthening the social fabric, organising the commons, working towards the energy transition and involving digital technologies.

Project Description:

Placemakers are the best in activating the community. And they know how to be creative in finding smart solutions. Even when there doesn’t seem much space or streets are small or money is tight. We have a major crisis to fix together, and Minouche hopes that all placemakers out here will share their best examples so we can have solutions together and get our streets and parks playful and climate proof!

Placemakers are using: 

Link to her work: https://stipo.nl/projects/?lang=en

Link to Dutch Championship Tegelwippen: https://nk-tegelwippen.nl

PLACES WHERE PLAY HEALS PEOPLE

PLACES WHERE PLAY SUPPORTS CLIMATE ACTION

PLACES WHERE PLAY UNITES US ALL

_____________________________________________________

The Real Play City Challenge awards inspiring cities and urban practitioners that have successfully used placemaking to create environments that give people time, space and opportunities to play. The Real Play City Challenge is an international competition led by the Real PlayCoalition (Arup, Ingka Group [IKEA], The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, and UNICEF) and PlacemakingX (represented by STIPO and Huasipichanga).

Register Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/2022edition 

Apply Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/apply

How play can help children and caregivers to recover from the impact of COVID19 in their mental health?

Healthy environments in all neighborhoods to promote family mental health in a post-pandemic context in developing countries.

Our Guest :

Vanesa’s professional career focuses on the design and management of innovative social projects. Expert in process management, and creating conditions for adequate early childhood development in local urban settings. President of COPERA Infancia for the period 2022-2023.

COPERA Infancia is a network of organizations (12), from different specialties, and independent professionals (21) that advocate for better conditions for Peruvian youngest children to grow up.

Project Description:

Neuroscience has shown the effect of the experiences of babies in their first years of life. These shape our developing brain architecture and determine the quality of our future mental health. The Harvard Center on the Developing Child (2020) warns that "the emotional well-being of young children is directly linked to the behavior of their caregivers", so it will be "essential to treat the mental health problems of young children in the context of their families, their homes and their communities”.

COPERA has been collecting data since 2020 on indicators that measure the effects of COVID-19 in the development of children (indicators of complaining behavior, fear or psychosomatic difficulties) and other variables of the caregivers (behavior, stress and mental health of the caregivers) and of the family (access to health services , satisfaction of economic needs) based on the report of caregivers of children between 6 months and 6 years of socioeconomic status.

Recent studies show that the lack of access and current degradation of the environment not only have direct effects on the increase, for example, in the incidence of diseases such as asthma in young children, but also pose significant challenges to the mental health of adult caregivers.

In COPERA, our organizations and professionals advocate for transforming streets and public spaces into better places where to meet others, play and reconnect with nature.

Link to her work: https://coperainfanciaperu.com/

PLACES WHERE PLAY HEALS PEOPLE

PLACES WHERE PLAY SUPPORTS CLIMATE ACTION

PLACES WHERE PLAY UNITES US ALL

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The Real Play City Challenge awards inspiring cities and urban practitioners that have successfully used placemaking to create environments that give people time, space and opportunities to play. The Real Play City Challenge is an international competition led by the Real PlayCoalition (Arup, Ingka Group [IKEA], The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, and UNICEF) and PlacemakingX (represented by STIPO and Huasipichanga).

Register Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/2022edition 

Apply Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/apply

The Case of Mexico by Fundación Placemaking Mexico

Low-Cost High-Impact Strategy: 30 Friendly Places for Early Childhood in Mexico

Our Guest : 

Guillermo Bernal is the Executive Director of Fundación Placemaking Mexico and Board Member of PlacemakingX. With ten years of experience, he has worked with over 200 public spaces in Mexico, focusing on creating participatory and sustainable communities.

Project Description:

LAPIS is an acronym in Spanish for "Early Childhood Friendly Places." How is this ordinally said in spanish (LAPIS)?Lugares Amigables  para la Primera Infancia

The adaptability of materials to the context, local talent, and participatory workshops that lead to a community design with children and caregivers are the core principles of LAPIS.

In the first phase of LAPIS, from January to May 2022, the first 10 of 30 planned for 2022 were built, designed to meet the needs of ten diverse communities around Mexico and eight different typologies: School pedestrian crossing, School playground, Urban garden, Rural park, Urban park, Bicycle school, and Nature Reserve.

Placemaking Mēxico Foundatiōn - https://placemaking.mx/noticia/620fac1b4991ad03420b01cf

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PLACES WHERE PLAY HEALS PEOPLE

PLACES WHERE PLAY SUPPORTS CLIMATE ACTION

PLACES WHERE PLAY UNITES US ALL

_____________________________________________________

The Real Play City Challenge awards inspiring cities and urban practitioners that have successfully used placemaking to create environments that give people time, space and opportunities to play. The Real Play City Challenge is an international competition led by the Real PlayCoalition (Arup, Ingka Group [IKEA], The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, and UNICEF) and PlacemakingX (represented by STIPO and Huasipichanga).

Register Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/2022edition 

Apply Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/apply

The Case of Bar Elias, Lebanon 

Participatory Spatial Intervention by Catalytic Action

Our Guest :  

Riccardo Luca Conti is the Co-founder and Executive Director at CatalyticAction. He is an architect and urban designer. He has led numerous initiatives, overseeing the design and construction of built interventions with vulnerable communities. He holds an MSc from University College London in Building and Urban Design in Development, and a BSc in Architecture from Politecnico di Milano.  

Project Description: 

This project in Bar Elias was aimed at reducing vulnerabilities and improving the wellbeing of the community. It sought to do this through spatial interventions that would be co-produced with the active participation of the local community (refugees and hosts). https://www.catalyticaction.org/bar-elias-psi/ 

PLACES WHERE PLAY HEALS PEOPLE 

PLACES WHERE PLAY SUPPORTS CLIMATE ACTION 

PLACES WHERE PLAY UNITES US ALL

 _____________________________________________________ 

The Real Play City Challenge awards inspiring cities and urban practitioners that have successfully used placemaking to create environments that give people time, space and opportunities to play. The Real Play City Challenge is an international competition led by the Real PlayCoalition (Arup, Ingka Group [IKEA], The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, and UNICEF) and PlacemakingX (represented by STIPO and Huasipichanga).

Register Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/2022edition 

Apply Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/apply

PLACES WHERE PLAY HEALS PEOPLE

PLACES WHERE PLAY SUPPORTS CLIMATE ACTION

PLACES WHERE PLAY UNITES US ALL

_____________________________________________________

The Real Play City Challenge awards inspiring cities and urban practitioners that have successfully used placemaking to create environments that give people time, space and opportunities to play.

The Real Play City Challenge is an international competition led by the Real PlayCoalition (Arup, Ingka Group [IKEA], The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, and UNICEF) and PlacemakingX (represented by STIPO and Huasipichanga).

Register Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/2022edition

Apply Here:  https://www.realplaycitychallenge.org/apply

Join Boopsie and Matias as they delve deep into the streets of La Boca and San Telmo, some of the oldest barrios of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Matias brings his expertise in social architecture, urbanism, art, and design. 

He can be found with his urban design team Urbanismo Vivo.

Episode Notes:

9:40 Participatory process as a crucial step before any design begins.  The team will gather information directly from the people living there : from the residents who  have the knowledge and who know the neighborhood better than anyone.

14:30 The most important thing is qualitative data. It is what we need that these interventions are making a change.  We mainly measure the amount of  people.. The speed of cars passing through the area in an effort to improve the walkability.  Humanscale of the street in an effort to empower safety.  We measure activities and we interview people to ask them about the perception of the space: quality of the equipment , cleanliness, safety, quality of the public space, quality of the public furniture to create a result that includes perception from the point of view of the humans in the space.

22:44  Public Space became crucial last year. It was the only space where we were able to share the power of public space.  Last year, we tried to create a good quality public space in a neighborhood where there is a huge lack of public space. No space for kids , no sitting, no trees, and it is a very grey area of the city .

25:30 Urbanismo Vivo provided tool to help people organize and create a co -design proposal to deliver to the city that outlines the identity of the community and the project as the neighbours of the area.  Bottom-up - From this the government and people gained a high-quality public space

33:28 Urban Kintsugi - The whole concept is to use the resources you have and to show the breaks and joints of the problems.. Keep them visible and make it still beautiful.  We don’t cover the entire area.. But, we ensure we maintain the shape, cracks, and integrity of the specific street site.

40:20   The importance of multi-disciplinary teams in urban spaces .  We need sociologists, we need social workers, we need lawyers, we also for sure need urbanists and architects.  But, the mix of the social sciences, the technical aspects, and the regulatory aspects of the use of plan need to work together to achieve that common goal to create more equal, accessible spaces that represent the desire of the residents. We need to get used to have more debates in the field of urban space. Generating the debate with local residents and reducing the helicopter view of our cities.

55:08 The sense of Walking Festival is that each walk is self organised and designed by the leader of that walk. It is a very collective process.  We invited people to create their own walks and create the base of the objectives that we want.

56:20 - The purpose of the festival is to connect people with the city. Link people with the history of the city  and attempt to stop the alienating process of cities that separates humans from the intangible stories that are part of our social patrimony and heritage of the city

The story of the public space - what happened, what is the history to bring new life to a place from the old stories.

Useful Links & References:

https://urbanismovivo.com.ar/

https://festivaldecaminatas.com.ar/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/urbanismo-vivo/

https://www.instagram.com/urbanismo_vivo/?hl=en -