Guest lecture and consultations: Playscapes • Creativity and Safety

The workshop process has now gradually reached the design phase. Students insight into the alleys structure, children’s behaviour and parents or teachers’ opinions have progressively matured into ideas of design interventions. It has become clear - playscapes should be places of adventure, joy and imagination, where children create memories and establish ties to playmates, to their tutors, their families as well as bonds to local environments. Safety here is of foremost importance. For this reason, we organised a guest lecture and consultations for students with an experienced consultant and certificated court expert on outdoor playground safety Mr Slavko Rudolf. Slavko has delivered a pointed lecture and answered all the questions related to detailed design issues as regards the risk.

The lecture was followed by a lively discussion among all participating students and mentors, debating the balances between the developmentally- and age-appropriate risk-taking in playgrounds. We agreed that a well-designed playground includes both challenging equipment and a safe and controlled environment for a child to test, assess and explore. At the same time this represents a platform for local social life and invites also adults and teenagers.

We are grateful and confident that Slavko’s experiences and knowledge shared in our sessions will contribute to safer design proposals!