Childing the City:
Exploring the role of play in architectural interventions for urban uncertainty
Childing (n)
The carefree, joyful, and pleasurable exercise of play, that results in fruitful development and flourishing, and the ability to negotiate uncertainty and instability. Usually applied to children in their developmental stage.
The research is divided into 3 chapters; reading, writing, and constructing the city through childing which delve into the concept of “childing” as a design tool for creating more resilient and dynamic urban environments, with a specific focus on Johannesburg. The research uses the self-generated concept of childing and acts of play as an important design tool to speculate a future metropolis in which children, the act of childing and forms of play are the focus and means of generating new architectures. This open-ended and dynamic approach with its ability to negotiate and inhabit uncertain conditions through tactics of play becomes especially significant in contexts of constant change and instability that characterize many urban areas in Johannesburg. In the process, would we be able to arrive as spatial responses that suited our context better, but also supported childing, and play as an important part of adult life? Could we restore fluidity, delight, joy, wonder, pleasure, and freedom to the core of our urban design responses?
The concept of childing serves as a critical design tool for speculating a future metropolis where open-ended, dynamic approaches to urban uncertainty become paramount. The research question centers on whether we can read the navigation of uncertainties and improbabilities as acts of play and use childing as design generators to develop new architectural interventions for a constantly changing urban landscape.
The proposition is framed in 3 parts. The first framing document is called the “Playbook Manual.” This toolkit outlines tactics and rules for promoting childing, especially in conditions of uncertainty and improbability. It draws from indigenous childhood games and transcribes them into tactics for construction, serving as a method of evidencing the existing conditions of childing in Johannesburg and other improbable urban areas. The playbook also introduces the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an index to assess the levels of successful childing in a location. Applying these indicators helped select a site in Mayfair – Firdows Park, where architectural childing was least evident, but the activities of everyday people suggested a need for an environment that supports childing.
