EDW 2024 MADE Premier Event: Play for all: designing dynamic public spaces

Why are the only play spaces in our cities for kids?

Research has shown that the benefits of play are not limited to children. For adults, play can relieve stress, improve overall wellbeing, nurture critical thinking, and help strengthen our relationships. But despite these benefits, it’s hard to find examples of spaces for all-ages play in the city, beyond the standard sports fields, pickleball courts, and ping pong tables.

In this hands-on, charrette-style event, we’ll explore, design, and create placemaking interventions through the lens of play. How can we transform public spaces into playful, dynamic, engaging, and active places for all ages? How can we make sure these places embrace and welcome everyone? How can placemaking interventions go from transformation, to activation, to eventually become destinations in their own right?

This charette invites designers and design enthusiasts of all levels to imagine what’s possible for a revitalized Michael Phair Park, envisioning how playful activations could inspire creativity, foster community connections, and help transform the park into a vibrant, inclusive, and dynamic destination for all ages. Architects from hcma will coach and inspire with their own notes from the field designing successful placemaking interventions like Alley Oop and Ackery’s Alley in Vancouver, and Confetti at Michael Phair Park.

Expect a fun, interactive evening packed with sketching, making, sculpting, and ideating. Together, we’ll learn from each other, challenge each other, and find new ways of cultivating public space with play at heart.

THE CHALLENGE

In recent years, Michael Phair Park has become a pocket of activity in Edmonton’s downtown core. Confetti, a placemaking intervention by interdisciplinary design firm hcma, celebrates Alberta’s first openly gay city councillor, Michael Phair, with hundreds of multi-coloured circles exploding across the surrounding walls and ground. Now with the park’s landscape design under construction for renewal, this charette will ask how might playful interventions for all ages further activate and inspire this once anonymous urban space?  

Groups will explore and envision possibilities for interventions at Michael Phair that intentionally promote play and further instill the park’s presence downtown, demonstrating their concepts using the materials provided. Each group will receive 1-2 prompts to shape their response. Prior to the event, we’ll also share information and inspiration with participants to spark their imagination and get thoughts flowing on possible solutions. While groups get to work, architects from hcma will facilitate, providing feedback and support.

Host or Publisher MADE (Media Architecture Design Edmonton)