Playground

Design of play spaces through exploration, abstraction and scale, where form becomes experience and movement shapes new ways of inhabiting and discovering the environment.

Students

África Magro, Diego Fernandez, Juana Tomas, Maria Eleveens, Paola Prado, Valeria Bechara and Valeria Chao

Teachers or tutors

Ana Matos

Area of knowledge and degree

Interiors, Grado en Marketing

Publication year

2025

“I think of playgrounds as a collection of forms and functions; simple, mysterious and evocative; therefore, educational.”

The project involves the design of a playground or children’s recreational area, conceived as a space for exploration where children discover their surroundings through movement and direct interaction with the environment. Far from following a single typology, these spaces are envisioned as open and heterogeneous configurations, capable of stimulating curiosity, play, and autonomy. The proposal builds on compositions previously developed by the student, taking as a reference one of the configurations inspired by Paul Klee’s The City. This initial image is interpreted as an abstraction —in plan or section— serving as the foundation for the development of the project. From this base, the necessary variations are introduced to ensure the design’s feasibility and its adaptation for real use.

One of the main challenges is translating the proportions and formal relationships of a pictorial language into a scale suitable for children’s use, taking into account criteria such as ergonomics, safety and functionality. In addition, the design must be conceived as a modular system, allowing the proposal to grow, adapt or be reduced depending on the context in which it is installed.

The project is developed within a maximum surface area of 10 x 10 metres and includes the material definition of the whole, as well as its construction system, considering aspects such as component breakdown, assembly and disassembly. In this way, the design is approached not only from a formal perspective, but also from a technical and operational one.