Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - Design Testing Day

On Sunday 20th March we explored elements of the proposed new play landscape at a space nearby, and closely resembling, the site with 7 young local residents. Specifically, what does it mean to make demountable features?


We used tape and a template to apply a geometric motif and pattern, creating spaces to play hopscotch and long jump. We tested the idea of optical illusions, using tape to 'draw' a very long ladder across horizontal and vertical planes. How high could we climb?



We 'drew' a door and windows and imagined what happens inside the solid concrete column supporting the DLR line ... is there a different world inside?

We used simple trick photography to 'test' the model artfeature/bench/ramp models made on the previous day.


Children tested their sense of risk and responsibility, using some crates found nearby to build different towers, steps and low ramps for balancing, and map patterns with shadow and light.


We explained that the landscape architects intend to incorporate signage in the fences around the proposed Multi use games area. Using plastic cups children made temporary signage in the perimeter fence. The young people's ambition to spell out – Supercalifragalisticespealidocious was thwarted by lack of resources and lack of confidence in spelling! However it was a super day!

BelieVe in Better

We were very pleased to be part of the brilliant BelieVe in Better event at Britannia Village Hall on Saturday 19th March. As Dave, the Hall manager said "It was a great example of the statutory authorities working together with the voluntary sector and local people and businesses to celebrate the best about the community". Lots of fun, shared by all.

We invited people to take part in several activities to explore and inform the designs of the proposed new play landscape:

Making drawings of "geometricky" paths

Making models of artfeature/bench/ramp

Rearranging our 'yellow collection' to display their preferences.

The ideas gathered were then tested at 1:1, and with the use of trick photography under the DLR line near West Silvertown Station on Sunday 20th March.

Building ramps and patterns in Thames Barrier Park

Two children from Britannia Village assisted us in the session for local residents. We set up ramp building equipment and materials for making drawings to influence the supergraphic designs of the new playable landscape. We spent time interviewing users of the cafe in Thames Barrier Park and some families engaged with us to build and draw.
A woman and her two sons made a variety of ramps and tested them for speed, they said they live locally and would be likely to use the new playable landscape.




Walking in Barrier Park East with the two children, they revealed the place in their terms, what they most wanted to do was explore the dense shrubbery. This was carried out and resulted in a little mild fear, getting dirty and being out of the view of the other park users. Afterwards the children said we’d ‘had an adventure.’



The children began to take ownership of the design and the future play space during this session by explaining the plans to strangers, measuring a variety of structures to get a sense of how the 20cm ramps will be, measuring, gradients, steps and the columns under the DLR.

Some interesting things we found in Thames Barrier Park

Some elements in and near Thames Barrier Park have undergone adhoc repairs, adjustments and synthesise.

For example the netting in the single goal post is replaced by a barrier which has a rubbish bag tied to it, and lightweight signage for the pavilion café is held in place by a broken chair. While a sign nearby indicates that a galvanized steel fencing has no scrap value, these
creative solutions, are precious and inspiring.

Other elements such as the defunct, much loved water features and out of date
updates, indicate that costly, complex or continual maintence should be avoided.

Things that go bump in the night

On the evening of Thursday 10th March at Britannia Village Hall, responding to the proposal for mounds (max 200mm high under DLR) in the new play landscape, 10 young people produced 200mm high bumps, mounds and ramps. Lottie's baby bump isn't quite 200mm yet!

Testing out different gradients and surfaces we raced wind up toys, rolls of tape and tennis balls down the ramps to see which went furthest and fastest!

We caught air in bags to make balloons and tried to keep them up as high as possible without using our hands

Riding Modern Art

On Monday 28th February Ashley went to hear artist Raphael Zarka in conversation with Iain Borden, Professor of Architecture and Urban culture at UCL. Raphael's film montage Riding Modern Art is an exploration of skateboarders' interplay with found spaces and structures. The film shows how the geometry of public sculpture can shape the skateboarders' movement. 


Could the art features proposed for East Barrier Park accommodate this sort of interaction?

Something can be more than one thing

On Tuesday 22nd February, I shared pizza and stories about play and joy on the streets, with 10 young people and staff at Brittania Village Hall. We looked at proposals for the new playable landscape and the young people raised a few interesting questions, including:

Isn’t it too near the road? What use is a 200 mm mound? What is an art feature?

Some people were unsure about what you might do in a Multi Use Games Area, and others explained that multiple means various, so you can make up your own rules, play in teams or on your own.

Following through this idea we looked at the idea of free play, ambiguity and optical illusions where something can be more than one thing … including a duck/rabbit illusion, anamorphic drawings in 3 dimensions and artworks by Banksy.

To test the idea that ‘something can be more than one thing’ and encourage playful actions we took 5 rolls of sticky tape outdoors to the roadside. The young people made a temporary ambiguous drawing that changed shape and use, becoming a pathway, a volleyball net, a limbo dance space and a human catapult, until the materials ran out. The empty spools were adapted as wheels to roll across the pavement and discs to throw across the road. Someone was trussed up (voluntarily!) and the drawing was revised several times before being recycled as 3 balls.

The young peoples’ ideas will be adapted, scaled up and tested under the DLR line near West Silvertown station on Sunday 20^th March.

Some kind of game found at London City Airport …

Some kind of game found at London City Airport on Tuesday 13th February

Zebra and Hoopla

Ashley and Lottie are intrigued and inspired by the way people have playfully responded to these two lamp posts along the DLR line. 'Zebra' near West Silvertown and 'Hoopla' opposite London City Airport.

Royal Docks Networking Event and ideas from Drew School

Lottie attended a networking event on the 9th February at Drew Primary School this was organised brilliantly by Nadine from Newham as part of Community Leaders.

It was good to meet all of those who attended, Lottie described the project aims and made contact with a wide variety of locally active people. It was especially good to talk to: local resident Rose, who suggested that young people have a much bigger investment in building projexts and new construction when they help built it themselves, Gary from Theatre Venture, Betty who runs the ASTA youth project and young people who she works with, Patrick Murphy Newham Cllr, Roger Ayrton Newham, Bobby Kensah from Norton Rose and Gary from the Royal Docks learning and activity centre.We are very much hoping they will come along to the creative activities we are running as part of the Active Community event on Saturday the 19th March at Britannia Village Hall 3-6pm.

Leaps of Imagination at Drew Primary School

On February 15th, we delivered our first session with 30 bright and inspiring Year 5 pupils in Drew Primary School. We were very impressed with their map reading skills, the wild and wonderful ideas they had for being joyful in the streets, and their ideas for how to make the new playable landscape under the DLR on the North Woolwich Road an exciting place that they and their siblings will want to play.

The session began with an introduction to the ways Ashley and Lottie work and a short discussion on what art can be. We looked at the map of the locality and children proved that they are experts on their local area. When asked about their perceptions of the area under the DLR currently, they described it as

"Cold", "Grey", "Freaky", "Echoey", "Smelly", "Scary" and "Noisy"

The pupils considered the ways they already use the streets and public spaces in ways that are joyful and creative without the use of swings, slides or other conventional playground equipment and we discovered that they have many funny, adventurous and playful activities they like to do as they move from A-B. The children came up with many ideas. We provided them with an alphabet made up of the letters found on signs in the local area.



And from these they created short snappy instructions that would make good signs. They then made signs to encourage more people to try fun activities in the streets.

On the 10^th of March Lottie visited Drew Primary again to build on the ideas introduced during the first session 2 weeks earlier. I showed them the plan of the play space provided to us by Townsend. We thought about what might work well in the space, looked at the ideas they came up with last time. They had lots of creative ideas for using normal urban spaces, where no play equipment exists. Building on this, they were shown images of the work of designers and architects who, using simple, cheap materials were able to facilitate play. The challenge to them this time was to design something that would facilitate the kinds of play they said they enjoyed.

Some children volunteered to act out ideas that they and the young people from Britannia Village Hall Youth Group had previously compiled. There was a very long list which included:

basketball, tree climbing, make a den, make patterns on the ground with stones, hopscotch, jump puddles, limbo dancing, one handed handstand, skateboard, street dance, stunts, table tennis and scrambling.

To help them visualize the space their designs might go into, we taped out some of the features of the space onto the classroom carpet using electrical tape. This required team work and was successful, especially with the group of boys who took the time to work out the best way to make the circumference of the octagonal columns on the ground out of rope and tape.

They made drawings with ideas for making good use of 20cm mounds using a variety of wheeled vehicles, they also like the idea of rolling their bodies over the mounds, some of the drawings contain suggestions for colour schemes, one of them is entitled ‘the longest line of grass’ lots of ideas for making the most of gradients, drawings that show the ground being brightly coloured to encourage street dance, handholds on the slope for scrambling up, level changes that are easy to jump between and den building.