Build Your Own Playground

How can architecture bring communities together to reimagine ‘play’ /an intervention to bring people to Governor’s Island, New york.

for Architectural Association Visiting School, New York

This project aims to increase engagement among New Yorkers on Governor’s Island by reimagining play through interactive installations. While activities such as glamping, research, and festivals currently attract visitors to the island, there is a need for additional engagement opportunities, that can become a part of the Island’s experience.

Utilizing the starting point of Mid-journey, playful images were developed and used to create a block prototype. Drawing inspiration from the play styles established by Stuart Brown MD, the block was organized into 4 distinct types - activity, mirror, creativity, and light cubes - based on 8 play categories for adults and children: joker, kinesthetic, explorer, competitor, director, creator, storyteller, and collector. This gives us a vocabulary to understand play.

Participants can use a digital interface to build their own structures using these blocks, facilitating engagement on the Island and offline. These structures can be brought to life on Governor’s Island at various scales through simple installations, that encourage communities to come together in a space and play.

This page shows the experience created when each block is aggregated with itself - creating interesting playfields such as a climbing wall, a creative blackboard, a light threshold and a mirror maze

This aggregation of the project envisions the immersive experience that can be created by combining all four block categories.

Governor’s Island currently lacks sufficient outdoor shading, making it an uncomfortable destination for visitors on hot days. This large scale version of the ‘Build your own Playground’ installation seeks to reimagine shade as an interactive feature that can be built by visitors through digital contributions and experienced on the Island.

The integration of color, light, texture, and materiality creates a captivating interior environment that promises an exciting and engaging experience for visitors.