I found this image a year or so ago when working on a design competition entry, in fact I found a whole lot of images of a similar nature. Elements of technology ‘plugged’ into urban environments. In principle, I think the idea is fantastic, public realm environments which people can learn from. However and it’s a big HOWEVER, in many ways I feel this is probably the easy way out. This is not to say that integrating technology into these environments is a bad idea, more that it’s possibly the easy way out. This kind of technology and the amazing amount of information it provides us is available to us, every day, everywhere on our phone, tablets and computers. Even fridges have the internet……. "What really interests me is how we can design environments that we can more passively learn from". When it comes to children, I think there is some great examples of stimulating built environments, Adventure Playgrounds are probably the best example (I can think of). Reducing reliance on conventional ‘off the shelf’ playground items, focuses children to create, engage, touch, feel, explore and imagine.
We have recently designed a project to be constructed here in Abu Dhabi, which includes the development of four (4) neighbourhood parks, including adventure playgrounds in each. These parks have a number of layers of design theory regarding the education content. To start, the overall park design is based on local natural environment themes, The Desert by way of example. This reflects in the general arrangement, actives, program & materiality of the park. Within this, the playground areas have an overarching design theme, ‘Oasis in the Desert’. From there the storey continues to unravel and highlight, the importance of water in the local environment, the history of travel and exploration within the UAE, navigation, navigation by stars, Arabic constellations etc. Now admittedly this is allot of layers, they may not all be immediately legible nor understood. However, people will take different experiences away from these spaces, they will talk about them with their children, friends and family and that is possible the most important thing. What these spaces stimulate, in terms of social interaction. We are really looking forward to these being built, ultimately how people react and interact with these spaces will prove or dis prove our theory and measure the success of the parks. As technology advances, it will be interesting to see how the fabric of the public realm environment changes. Will we be assaulted with more digital information and all the marketing, advertising and censored information that goes with it? I hope not…….. Luke Maiden
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AuthorLUKE MAIDEN Archives
September 2015
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