Just look into a child’s eyes as they happen upon a wriggling worm. Before scooping it up, they watch as it bends, turns, twists its glistening annulated skin through crumbling earth. There is wonderment at play seeing this movement, the peek-a-boo tunneling, the coiling retreat.
Source: architektur fur kinder
Behold the Lozziworm conceived and designed by Swiss sculptor Yvan ‘Lozzi’ Pestalozzi. First introduced in the 1970s, there are somewhere in the vicinity of 110 spread out across Europe in parks, playgrounds and schoolyards.
Source: architektur fur kinder
Thanks to PlayGroundology reader Cynthia Henry who shared the news that a Lozziworm is on its way to Pittsburgh, USA to be an outside beacon for the 2013 Carnegie International. A Carnegie spokesperson told PlayGroundology that there’s “a play structure because the International this year features works by artists that deal with play, both in the traditional sense of being playful, but also in the sense that play is the wellspring of creativity and making–many of them play with very serious ideas, or turn history upside down.”
The Carnegie’s Lozziworm is scheduled to be in place for play by late April. The ground is being prepared now. A profile view will look something like this.
Courtesy Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Before signing off, take stock of Lozzi’s credo, they could be words to live by.
Think like a mature human being – enjoy life like a child.
We’ll be in touch with the Carnegie next month to get more info on the playground related exhibits during this year’s edition of the International.
Oh, you might be wondering what does one do with a Lozziworm? Crawl, climb, jump, squeeze through the dark interior, reconfigure the shape and of course endless games from the imagination.
We are the only species that sets aside dedicated space to be used exclusively for play by our young. But in many countries throughout the world humans are not the only ones populating playgrounds.
Playground in Sofia, Bulgaria. Source: Snezhka Karatoteva.
It’s as if some of Noah’s precious charges were peppered across playscapes to watch over and amuse the human young. There are African and Australian animals from the wild, barnyard favourites and mythical creatures.
The playground animals serve multiple roles – slides, teeter-totters, climbers and springriders. They are also a friendly reminder that there is a natural world for us to engage with and care for.
Playground in Sofia, Bulgaria. Source: Snezhka Karatoteva.
There are more great photos from Zemen, Bulgaria to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in the PlayGroundology curated gallery ‘Animal Farm’ right here.
Editor’s note – thanks to Snezhka Karatoteva from Sofia, Bulgaria who recently dropped in on the PlayGroundology FB Page and offered to share playground photos with PlayGroundology readers. Check the blog here.
In a matter of just a few hours, Chris Gregory will be readying himself to get out the door to work at the Children’s Centre in Douglas, Isle of Man. He’s been preparing for this day since April 1, 2012. No, it’s not just any Friday. This Friday marks the beginning of an epic journey. For the entire month of March, Chris will be making his way to work by a different means of transportation to raise awareness for outdoor play and safe routes for children.
If you really want something to stand out in peoples’ imaginations it has to be a little bit silly and the fact that you’re promoting children’s play it has to be something quite playful — Chris Gregory
Chris laments the changes that have come about in kids’ lives over the last two or three decades. The days when kids were out playing more, walked to school as a matter of course and generally had more independence and freedom are not that far behind us but sometimes they do feel like a distant memory.
In my case they are back in the old days a bit. It was the mid-1960s when I started walking to school on my own and getting out and about unsupervised in the world. In many respects, the lives of current day grade school kids bear little resemblance to how we played and to how independently mobile we were when I was growing up. I really think today’s kids are missing out.
Good on Chris Gregory for creating this fun and imaginative March2Work campaign. I hope it will help to broaden the conversation around children’s play and independence. PlayGroundology will be dropping in on Chris a couple of times during the month to see how he’s holding out. It can be a grueling three kilometers before he arrives at his office door.
Let’s all wish Chris well as he heads out on his maiden voyage to mark the 2nd annual March2Work.
Recently, I posted the photo below on PlayGroundology FB commenting that I thought the tank had found a better purpose than for what it was originally intended. One of my regular readers didn’t agree. She thinks war machinery has no place in kids’ playgrounds.
A couple of days later I came across articles in the San Francisco Chronicle about a fighter plane that had been a play structure fixture for more than three decades in San Francisco’s Larsen Park. It got me thinking, would I allow our three young kids to play on a tank, or in a fighter jet?
Monstrum playscape in Nørrebroparken, Copenhagen. Photo credit – Jan Ingemansen. License – (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Back in the mid-1960s as a young lad in grade school getting the bi-monthly short back and sides at the barbers, I was an avid after school and weekend warrior. I lived in Toronto then and our apartment block bordered on a 10 to 15 acre green space. The hills were dotted with unmanicured shrubs and a valley plain served as a soccer and baseball field, bike rodeo and a gathering place for war games. It was a green oasis but no pastoral idyll. On the other side of a six foot high Frost fence at the southern extremity of our play zone, the 12-lane 401 highway roared by. Our activities continually played out to the droning buzz of fast flow traffic.
Along with sports and playgrounding, war games were a recurring part of our play menu. Even though real life conflicts in Vietnam and Biafra raged on newscasts we chose our recreations from contemporary pop culture. Sgt. Rock, who seemingly single-handedly won the World War II for the allies, was one of our primary inspirations for mid-century warfare. James Bond was of course our role model in the world of spylike skullduggery against our Cold War foes. A number of us were packing the 007 spy attaché case.
Reaching further back in time, we pretended we were fighting in the American Civil War. There wasn’t much left to the imagination from the scenes depicted in the Topps Civil War News card set. Then there was also the Hollywood fueled reenactments of epic Cowboy and Indian clashes. No matter the historical period, we had the rifles, machine guns, helmets, knives, canteens, grenades and other necessary accoutrements to vanquish the enemy whoever that might be.
Topps Civil War News Trading Card, 1962
We played regularly taking turns being the ‘bad’ guys. We were killed, resurrected and played on. There was one family of five brothers whose parents’ religious convictions had them attending an evangelical church. There only stricture was no war games on Sundays. At the time, it was the only opposition I was aware of to our grade school warrior play.
About 15 years later I was back in Toronto working in the peace movement organizing short term international youth exchanges focused on volunteer activities with a social justice twist. The early 1980s was a time of demonstrations in Toronto trying to raise awareness about conflicts in Central and South America, South Africa and about militarism in our own backyard such as work being done in support of the Cruise Missile. At the time I was an ardent and righteous anti-war toys guy and pro ‘arms are for hugging’.
Not a lot has changed for me since then except perhaps that the certainty of black and white solutions has become more grey. I’m as passionate as ever about arms being for hugging. I’ve never bought toy guns for any of our kids and never will. Regardless the kids fabricate them with different materials – sticks, blocks, lego. Just yesterday, Noah and Nellie were scooting around the house ‘shooting’ at each other. When I gave them my one minute exposition on what guns do to people, Noah quipped, “these are pretend water guns papa”.
The war toys debate has been on for decades. Though not toys per se, these pieces of decommissioned military hardware in playgrounds are seen as birds of a feather. Here is a young David Halton on Canada’s CBC TV in December 1965 reporting on a Voice of Women campaign.
xxxlCBC TV, December 1965 – Voice of Women Campaign
It was easier when I was a kid. I was embroiled in the moment and the ethos of the times. I loved my Daisy air rifle and my Hong Kong machine gun that made the noise and sported a facsimile flame of red plastic at the barrel tip. I don’t think I was desensitized. I would argue in fact that many of today’s video games are far more graphic and violent than anything we experienced as kids.
If an old CF-18 dropped into our neighbourhood playground tomorrow, I’d let the kids play on it. I’d also let them know what kind of machine it was. In a way, I think we’d be beating swords into ploughshares. What are your thoughts?
The British Columbia Teacher’s Federation has produced an excellent resource – War Toys to Peace Art – that you can download here.
I love flickr galleries. They allow you to curate photos from Around the World.
License – (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Darfurian refugees in Eastern Chad (Original caption)
Chad / Darfurian refugees from Sudan / Oure Cassoni camp (Head of Office in Bahai said 31 800 refugees, december 2011), 18 kilometers north from Bahai UNHCR sub-office located 361 km north-east from Abeche, located 900 kilometer east from N’Djamena the chadian capital. The camp is located 17 km from the sudanese border, and was opened in july 2004. Children play on a slide on a playground in Oure Cassoni. / UNHCR / F. Noy / December 2011
PlayGroundology has just wrapped its third year of blogging about the world of play and playgrounds. Following are nine posts that readers found popular. If you didn’t see them first time around, I hope you’ll take a moment to sample two, or three. If you like them, share with others – play never has a best before date. Happy playing and thanks for reading PlayGroundology!
Photo credit: J. Bruchet. Source:Architectures de cartes postales. Designer: Pierre Székely. Cité des Jeux – L’Haÿ-les-Roses, France
I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for France so I’m always on the lookout for interesting play stories from that part of the world. Our family lived there in the early 70s. I was 12 when we arrived and 15 when we left. It was my gawky early adolescent phase which I like to think I’ve outgrown. (more…)
Paradise might be a bit of a stretch but Malmö, Sweden is quite simply playgroundalicious. It’s the kind of place that would inspire Mary Poppins to gather her young charges around her and umbrella them off to adventure – up through the atmosphere/ up where the air is clear/ let’s all/ go to Malmö. (more…)
There are four stunning, brilliant images in the March 1 edition of the The New York Times Magazine offering glimpses of children at the Somerford Grove Adventure Playground in London, England. (more…)
How do you spice up your morning commute to work and at the same time make it more meaningful? Look no further than my friend Chris Gregory for an answer. Chris is a champion for play at the Isle of Man’s leading children’s charity The Children’s Centre. To raise awareness for outdoor play and safe and playful routes for children, he is taking a different means of self propelled transport every workday for the month of March. His epic journey started out with a 3 kilometer spacehopper commute. Do I hear sore thighs? (more…)Note, Chris is in training for his second run at March 2 Work.
Two acres of green space in the Dzorwulu neighbourhood of Accra, Ghana are being primed for transformation. It’s all about the kids, or Mmofra as they are called in Ghana’s Akan language.
This story, about a small plot of land, spans decades, continents and generations. It’s the story of a woman’s vision, of her love for children. The seeds were sown 50 years ago when the late Efua Sutherland wrote her groundbreaking book on Ghana’s play culture, Playtime in Africa. The narrative and accompanying photographs by Willis E. Bell were the first real documentation of children’s play in the newly independent African nation. (more…)
Earlier this spring, Sir Ken (Robinson) shared his views on education with an appreciative audience in Halifax, Nova Scotia – home of PlayGroundology. I was one of the 1,000 in attendance who enjoyed an accomplished and entertaining critic of conventional wisdom about education and creativity. No props, no notes, plenty of humourous asides and always an à propos anecdote. (more…)
Have You Heard What They’re Saying About RISK? Listen Then Share
Generally speaking, parents want their kids to experience the fullness of the world – the quiet beauty, the dizzying adventure, the discovery of self and others. As much as possible we want to keep hurt and injury at bay but they too are part of the mix with cuts, scrapes and breaks both corporeal and psychological. So how do we go about assessing risk? How do we ensure that our kids aren’t enclosed in a cocoon of safety?
I saw this video a couple of nights ago and thought I would play a small role in helping to spread the word. Right now it’s at 373 views. After you’ve watched it, please share with your friends and your broader network.
Thanks to the Alliance for Childhood and KaBOOM! for producing this piece.
There’s something cosmic about swinging, a certain je ne sais quoi. When I saw Teena Marie Fancey’s Baby Boy at The Craig Gallery on Dartmouth, Nova Scotia’s waterfront a couple of years ago, I knew I had found a great opening image for a paean to swings. Thanks Teena. (more…)
PlayGroundology scours the web for all things bright, beautiful and occasionally tarnished in the world of playgrounds. You'll find posts here about design, art, civic engagement, history, equipment old and new, photography, advocacy groups, bloggers and oddities.
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Alex Smith
Editor PlayGroundology
...an emerging social science
Source: architektur fur kinder
Source: architektur fur kinder
Courtesy Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
