PLAYGROUNDS AND COMMON SPACE. ON PLAYING IN THE SUSPENDED CITY

Abstract

This essay interweaves some reflections on children’s play areas or playgrounds and the role they assume today in public life. The closure of children’s playgrounds for several months due to Covid-19 restrictions, followed by their weather-induced shutdown, have provided an opportunity to review the nature of play areas in the city (analysis of their conditions of design) and play activity itself (design of its conditions), both as an object and design tool. Research into particular aspects of these recreational facilities, such as their industrial design, safety or ubiquity, allows us to articulate the significance of this often-neglected architecture. This inquiry starts from the generic nature of such architectures with the purpose of contributing to the profession’s debates on how both the rediscovery of childhood and the city, linked to the longed-for restoration of social activity, could lead to the emergence of new forms of common space. By means of historiographic review, the presentation of case studies of modern and contemporary playgrounds, and archival photographic material, both contingent and unpublished, the aim is to highlight the unrealized potential of these small but by no means minor spaces, and thus to try to understand how their use can open up the urban to a truly collective future.