Making the morning commute more colorful

August 6, 2012August 3, 2012 Beth Kelley1 Comment

Happy Monday. Ok, so most of us are probably a little bummed that the weekend’s over and we have to go back indoors and work or go to school for most of the day. Many of us (myself included) also take a subway or bus to get to work. And while there is the occasional musician or interesting graffiti, subway stations and bus terminals are usually pretty bland and boring, not the best thing to enliven you and get you ready for the day. Well, thankfully Stockholm, which already suffers from a lot of dark days throughout the winter, has come up with some relief for its subway passengers: beautifully painted subway stations! From Inhabitat:

Metro stations in Stockholm have been elevated to veritable art museums with stunning murals and playful art installations adorning the cave-like walls and ceilings.

The Stockholm subway system is often described as the world’s largest art museum — for the price of a Metro ticket, you can enjoy impressive works of art spanning from the 1950s to the 2000s. The Metro spans more than 110 kilometers, and 90 of the 100 stations in the system have been decorated with world-class murals and sculptures from 150 different artists.

The T-Centralen station — the city’s central subway station — which was designed by Per Olof Ultvedt in 1975, is perhaps the most iconic of them all, and it features massive blue-and-white paintings on its cave-like ceilings. With its bright red walls and ceiling, the Solna Centrum station looks otherworldly. The Kungsträdgården subway station has been designed to look like an archaeological dig, and it features the remains of Stockholm’s old Makalös palace. And the Östermalmstorg stations features art by Siri Derkert that focuses on themes that include the environment and women’s rights.

What a great way to combat the dark, dreary mornings (and evenings) of Sweden in winter, or just give yourself a mental boost on your way to and from work. Nice job Stockholm! 🙂

creativity · environment · play

Bringing the outdoor experience to lunch

July 31, 2012 Beth Kelley

I’m back from a short vacation, much of it spent in Spokane, WA, where I was thoroughly impressed by the falls and the fact that they had built this amazing promenade on both sides of the river to encourage people to go out and enjoy this beautiful site right in the middle of their city. I saw this blog post from Inhabitat this morning, and while I don’t think Spokane is quite ready to take the plunge with this, I thought there might be some fun inspiration for them here:

The Villa Escudero Resort of San Pablo City in the Philippines offers a one of a kind experience for guests to get up close and personal with a roaring waterfall while enjoying their lunch! Their waterfall restaurant sits at the foot of the Labasin Fallswhere guests can enjoy local cuisine at handmade bamboo tables while clear spring water runs over their feet. The falls are so people friendly, guests can even lie against the rushing water covered wall for quick massage or post-lunch rinse off. This is one resort where no shirt and no shoes are no problem!

I wish more restaurants and public locations would let grown-ups play during lunch. 🙂

community · creativity · music · play · Social

Making a little street music

July 16, 2012July 16, 2012 Beth Kelley

For the past four years, inspired by artist Luke Jerram, donated and painted baby grand pianos have been showing up in London during the summertime. This trend has now started to be picked up in major cities around the world, from Toronto, Canada, to Salem, Oregon.

From Now. Here. This.:

‘Play Me, I’m Yours’, an installation of street pianos created by artist Luke Jerram, is back in the capital for the fourth year. This time, in celebration of the City of London Festival’s Golden Jubilee anniversary, 50 *golden* pianos are popping up across London for three weeks until July 13. They can be found all over the city including Soho Square, St Pancras International Station and Parliament Hill – you may well hear the soft tinkling of the ivories before you see them.

From the Everett City Blog:

Pianos will be out August 1-22, 2012 for the Everett Street Tunes: An Invitation To Jam. Make music in the streets during Everett’s new interactive art project, Street Tunes! Musicians – both professional and novice – are invited to play any of the ten pianos located in downtown Everett.

Everett Street Tunes is an interactive art project, from start to finish, beginning with the commissioning of artists to paint and embellish each piano.

From the source itself, Street Pianos‘ website:

Touring internationally since 2008, “Play Me, I’m Yours” is an artwork by British artist Luke Jerram. Reaching over a two million people worldwide more than 600 pianos have now been installed in cities across the globe, from New York to Sydney, bearing the simple instruction ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’.

Located in public parks, bus shelters and train stations, outside galleries and markets and even on bridges and ferries, the pianos are available for any member of the public to play and enjoy. Who plays them and how long they remain is up to each community. Many pianos are personalised and decorated by artists or the local community. By creating a place of exchange ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ invites the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment.

The pianos are loaned with the understanding that they might not make it back in one piece, but so far in the past four years the most destruction to the pianos has been due to rain or other inclement weather.

Visit the website to find out more about this cool, interactive, playful art project, and locations near you.

children · creativity · education · emotion · environment · happiness · health · play · psychology · Social

Exploration of Playful Learning Spaces for Children

July 13, 2012July 12, 2012 Beth Kelley

From the blog Art Farm, a play/art therapist who offers some advice on creating spaces that encourage kids to explore, learn and play:

I really learned the importance of organizing and preparing spaces while working with youth in school settings in several public housing developments in Chicago. So often these youth would come to me (for either individual or group art therapy sessions) filled with anxieties which either manifested as acting out or withdrawn behaviors. The arrangement and presentation of the private space we used was a powerful, non-verbal message to them stating that all things are respected here – including you; everything has a place here – including you; and everything you will need to have a successful experience is here – starting with you.

[Mariah] Bruehl offers some questions to ask when designing a space for your own child:

Can your child access the materials in the play space independently? Are they organized in baskets or bins that are clearly labeled so your child knows how and where to put things away when finished with them?

Are the materials presented in an attractive manner that invites your child to use them?

Do the materials, toys, and games represent a balance between your child’s and your own preferences? Do they represent what you value and thus encourage your child to engage in activities that you feel good about?

What is your child currently interested in? If your child no longer plays with dinosaurs, but has been talking a lot about birds, make sure that the play space reflects this current passion. Rotating toys is a great way to keep your child interested in play space activities and ultimately prolongs the life of your child’s playthings. It never ceases to amaze me how excited my girls get about a toy that comes back into rotation. The nostalgia they feel toward a toy they have not seen in a while is almost more than their delight over a brand-new toy.

Is the play space a calming environment that allows one to focus on the task at hand without distracting colors, decorations, or objects?

Are you seeing things from you child’s perspective? Put yourself in your child’s shoes to determine the right height for displaying and storing materials and hanging art.

Is this a space that makes you want to make art, explore science, write stories, and more? If so, would you have everything you need to do what you want to do? What else would you add to enrich and deepen your child’s learning experience in the play space?

What other playful space researchers are out there? Any recommendations? I know about the organization Art With Heart, which focuses on creating therapeutic resources for sick kids. But I’d love to hear more about what’s out there. Let me know in the comments below.

Mapping our way with Playful Learning (artfulparent.typepad.com)
The therapeutic benefits of clay work in play therapy. (drama-in-ecce.com)

anthropology · architecture · community · creativity · environment · Social · technology

Mapped out Missed Connections

July 9, 2012July 9, 2012 Beth Kelley1 Comment

I’m a very visual person, so I like to map stuff out as much as possible. It looks like some artists had the same sentiment and took it to the next level. I argue this is environmental enrichment because it takes human connections (or missed human connections) and marks them in the universe, in a fun way!
From Wired:

You know Craigslist’s Missed Connections, right? The personals page where you log a brief interaction with a stranger who you hope to see again? The posts are a candid, wistful, often hilarious look at interactions — or the lack thereof — between people in the digital age, and beg the question, “Have we become so used to interacting online that we can’t say ‘hi’ in person?”

That question, among others, inspired artists Lisa Park and Adria Navarro to take these digital love notes and turn them back into physical markers. The pair made oversize stickers based on Missed Connections posts, then affixed them at the exact spot where the missed connection occurred. They document the entire project, called I Wish I Said Hello, online, completing the loop.

To me this is kind of like marking your initials in a tree without hurting a living organism. It’s fun, it tells a story, and it helps us make connections with people; even if we never meet them in real life, we learn a little bit about who they are, how they see the world, and a moment in their lives. That helps us in turn feel more connected to our communities and large, ever-expanding tribes.

Locations also hold special meaning to people; pilgrimages to the cafe where their favorite singer performed to Mecca and everything in between. These also create small landmarks that are probably insignificant in the long run, but help orient us in the world in some way.

Have a special place or spot? Why not mark it with a ribbon or rock, or just let us know about it in the comments below.

I Need To See You Again: Missed Connections Street Art (wired.com)
I Wish I Said Hello: a project devoted to Missed Connections (lostateminor.com)
Make Your Own “Missed Connections” Art (howaboutwe.com)

architecture · behavior · community · creativity · environment · happiness · health · play · Social

Adults for playgrounds? Yes, please!

July 5, 2012 Beth Kelley

Earlier this week I brought up the importance of spaces for play in the city, and then yesterday mentioned a scientific study that used traceurs or people who practice parkour, a sport that basically makes any space into a play space. Unfortunately park playgrounds are often verboten to grown-ups without a kid companion. But often grown-ups like the play equipment, or similar play equipment, as much as kids do. Now, the cities of New York and Detroit are determining where and whether to put in playgrounds specifically for adults:

New York City is installing adult playgrounds for fitness-hungry grown-ups, touting the benefits of a grade-school workout. …the Big Apple parks are geared more toward workouts than whiling away the summer hours. There aren’t any slides or swings yet at these outdoor gyms.

The City of New York built its first adult playground in the Bronx’s Macomb Dam Park. The New York Times reports as many as 24 playplaces for grown-up kids could be installed by 2014.

In Europe, where playtime seems to be more a more capricious venture, adult playgrounds tempt grown-ups to get off the couch with detailed outdoor mazes, rock climbing walls, elephant slides and swimming canals.

Philip Lauri is the founder of Detroit Lives!, the media company with the mission of bringing creativity to the streets of Detroit (through an apparel line, murals and the “After The Factory” documentary). Detroit Lives! has recently started experimenting with making places in the city that inspire that same joie de vivre and fun — like the Georgia Street Community Collective’s remote-control racetrack for kids living in the nonprofit’s target neighborhood. He thinks adult playgrounds could be smart additions to neighborhoods who have already installed thriving community gardens.

“In those areas, we install an adult playground as an addendum to that successful effort, and use the kind of neighborhood engagement that the garden created to successfully initiate the adult playground,” Lauri wrote. “Then, both sites grow with participation and we get healthier people and neighborhoods. That’s a simplified progression, but still tangible enough to act upon quite quickly.”

Most people taking the Huffington Post poll are all for adult playgrounds.

In some ways I find it sad that we need to create playgrounds specifically for grown-ups. Don’t we teach our kids to share and cooperate? But, in many ways it makes sense: for one thing, adults are bigger and therefore need different sized equipment. They also tend to play rougher, more competitively, and less cooperatively than children (according to numerous studies I’ll find and source later), so keeping the two play groups separated is probably a safer idea. Finally, grown-ups also need to be given explicit permission to goof off, at least much more so than kids, so giving them a space devoted entirely to play will help them get creative and playful in their movement.

What kind of equipment would you want on an adult playground? Rope swings? Fireman’s pole? Leave your thoughts in the comments below?

New York Introduces Its First Adult Playground (nytimes.com)
Sense of adventure: what happened to playgrounds that give children space (guardian.co.uk)
Adult playgrounds all the rage across the county (clickondetroit.com)
Should cities have playgrounds for adults? (stuff.co.nz)

anthropology · architecture · behavior · community · creativity · culture · design · education · learning · play

More projects on Play and the City

July 4, 2012July 3, 2012 Beth Kelley1 Comment

I posted last week about Jason Sweeney and his TED City2.0 plan to map out quiet spaces in cities.

After doing some more poking around I found some other great projects all grouped under “Play in the City.”

First, I commend TED and the participants of this project for recognizing the need for play in all environments and for all ages.

Second, they have some really cool ideas to check out:

Bruno Ruganzu, 10k prize winner and the first TED Prize recipient of 2012 in Doha, Qatar at the TEDxSummit

Bruno Ruganzu, a 29-year old eco-artist from Uganda, plans to turn thousands of plastic water bottles into an amusement park for children.
The Trust for Public Land teaches kids about water by engaging them in the design and construction of eco-playgrounds at their schools.
Poor children in coastal India are encouraged to play games as a way to bring sportsmanship and structure into their lives.

All of these great ideas and more are captured on the Play theme page of the TED City2.0 project.

I think people often think of play as done out in the woods or on playgrounds, and often forget that cities can contain all the resources needed for play. Just look at parkour or buildering or urban mountain biking, or even yarn bombing. That said, it is absolutely crucial to allow people to play in cities and to create spaces dedicated entirely to play, as much for grown-ups as for kids.

What other projects promoting play in the city are you aware of? Let me know in the comments below.

The fantastic initiatives that are creating City 2.0 (rossdawsonblog.com)
First 5 awards for City 2.0 prize announced (ted.com)
Introducing…The Cities Of The Future (huffingtonpost.com)
TED Prize engages people in designing the City 2.0 (Jun 27, 2012 10:24 AM) (knightfoundation.org)

behavior · creativity · environment · play

Boat Bumbers as elephant toys

July 3, 2012July 2, 2012 Beth Kelley

Bumber boat elephant — An elephant named Chai carries a boat bumper around with her trunk. Photo by Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo.

This time of year we often think of playing in boats and recreation on the water. But sometimes one kind of play can inspire an entirely different kind. I came across this great blog post from Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, WA, about how recycled objects like boat bumpers make great toys, especially for larger critters:

Our elephants have a number of toys, or, in zoo-speak, Environmental Enrichment Devices (EED) that are designed to bring out their instinctual behaviors, along with all the naturally enriching elements in their exhibit like trees, logs, leaf piles, water and different ground coverings. The elephants have quite an array of EEDs, and one of their favorites is a boomer ball, which we often fill with treats. But constantly purchasing more boomer balls (since the elephants can be a bit destructive with them) can be a little costly. So, what’s a zookeeper to do? We think outside the box, er, ball.

With a background working with marine mammals, I thought back to my days of playing with dolphins. We would throw boat bumpers and buoys in with the 800-pound critters, and play endless games with them. So, how would an 8,000-pound animal react to one?

To get my answer I ventured to West Marine to see if we could acquire a couple of boat bumpers to test out on these playful pachyderms. Lo and behold, I discovered that not only did the manager have a couple to spare, but that in the summertime, they often receive dozens each week. Finding a new and revitalized way to keep them out of the landfill was refreshing to him, and getting free toys for the animals at the zoo was exhilarating for me!

We hung a boat bumper up in the barn, and put another in an EED container to protect it from getting squished too soon. It didn’t take Bamboo long to figure out where the hole was located so she could get the treats out. It took a little encouragement from us for Bamboo to notice the hanging bumper, but once she realized it, too, held treats, it was game on, and she batted it non-stop until she was certain every morsel was out.

To see how the other elephants reacted, read the rest of the blog post.

Congrats to Woodland Park Zoo and West Marine for keeping stuff out of the landfill and making some elephants very happy!

anthropology · architecture · children · creativity · design · environment · health · Social · technology

6 Future Playgrounds That Harness Kids’ Energy While They Play | Co.Exist

June 27, 2012June 27, 2012 Beth Kelley2 Comments

What a great series from Co.Exist and Fast Company: play grounds, and other structures, that harness the energy of people’s movement. This may be the first time employees are actively encouraged to move around all day. 🙂

Kids have boundless energy. What if that energy could be put to some use besides just running around and having a good time. These new jungle gyms convert play to power.

When IBM came up with a list in 2011 of the five technologies it thinks will change the world in five years, kinetic energy–power from people–topped the list. Advancements could come, they say, from developments in devices that might harvest power from your shoes, your exercise, and even the soccer ball you kick. Green gyms are also cropping up. And now the idea has come to playgrounds, where kids’ movement can be harnessed and funneled into powering schools and toys.

Natural Energy Park

This playground–designed by Hyundai engineering and construction–is part jungle gym and part renewable energy science experiment. After climbing a ladder into a laboratory, kids can spin a wheel that will illuminate “Benjamin Franklin’s kite.” An optical illusion will spin at varying speeds as children adjust a solar panel to different angles. Pedaling a bicycle powers a pinwheel and illuminates lights around the structure. Hyundai calls this the “Natural Energy Park” and it looks like a lot of fun.

Empower Playground

Mixing fun and helping people, Empower Playgrounds is a non-profit organization that provides electricity-generating

playground equipment to villages in Ghana that are too remote to be on their nation’s electricity grid. The school children gain a playground as well as safe, rechargeable LED lanterns to light their homes so they can do their homework. Additionally, the play equipment doubles as part of a hands-on science lab that brings science concepts into their daily lives

See the whole series here.

For more on the future of playgrounds, check out 8 insane playgrounds, schools, and libraries of the future.

Know of other playful energy producers? Let us know in the comments below!

Empower Playgrounds Inc. (jumpforjoyphotoproject.wordpress.com)
Introducing A Green Energy Playground (forcedgreen.com)
In Future Playgrounds, Kids Create Energy Design News 06.26.12 (apartmenttherapy.com)

community · creativity · design · education · Social

Public Art Project That Shares, Teaches Art

June 20, 2012 Beth Kelley

Another great story about public artwork and interactive public space. This time courtesy of Design*Sponge:

Mike Perry (who was part of Design by the Book four years ago) is launching a new project via Kickstarter called Wondering Around Wandering. It’s a three-month FREE community exhibition and event space where Mike will teach workshops and host screenings, discussions and more. The space will welcome artists and art appreciators alike and, because of the time span, would be a great way for visiting artists and design enthusiasts to learn and experience on a more intimate level.