on site review 44: architecture and play

There are several ways to think about play, the most obvious one being the one which children, with great imagination and entertainment, do, learning as they go. Then there is organised play, sports and such, games involving opposing players of great prowess, skill and combativeness. And somewhere in-between is play that involves messing around for the sake of meaningless joy: play for the sake of play.

There is another use of the word play, which is the looseness in a system. Mechanical parts that have some play are not highly machined, or if they once were are now worn, introducing a play between parts. This is very interesting, that play describes this sloppiness, where exactitude is not a factor.

The architecture of play is linked indubitably to Aldo van Eyck’s schools and playgrounds, and from there all the theories of education, learning and play that so dominated the twentieth century. Increasingly, either through psychology, ideology or health and safety regulations, play has become channelled, scheduled – something closer to a machined part in a busy life than poking about a ditch with a stick. for hours. till dinner time.

Somewhere in all of this is the sense that joy is for children, that eventually one puts aside childish things and gets on with some other form of life, usually something more grim, less joyous. Something we see in the tragic children of war who have been forced to put aside childish things almost from birth.

In the practice of architecture do we have works conceived, designed and built with joy throughout the whole process? Where the sense of play is there from the start, an architecture of simple pleasures, of ridiculous time-wasting that is vastly pleasurable? This transcends program and looks squarely at the process of making architecture.

From history, from contemporary practice, from buildings you know, playgrounds you loved, or love.

What is the relationship between architecture and play?

contents:

p2 Ruth Oldham and Emilie Queney, a discussion, en jeu

6 Stephanie White on Peter Hemingway, air mindedness in the drawings of a very young architect on the Isle of Sheppey

10 Darine Choueiri on the stairwell schools of a Sarajevo under seige, and a postscript on schools in Rafah under bombardment

17 Samer Wanan on a toy box game of memory and storytelling for Palestinian children

22 Yvonne Singer looks at words and drawing in (for)play and wordplay

24 Yiou Wang, Minotaur plays Ludius Loci, her three tier game of great complexity and beauty

30 Ivan Hernandez Quintela designs a system of play ground pieces, infinitely combinable, for Mexico City

42 Amra Alagic, Lara Kurosky and Leah Dykstra propose a system, Nest and Branch, for an upturned neighbourhood in Tirana, Albania

48 Carol Kleinfeldt whips us through Kleinfeldt Mychajlowycz Architects 2015 BMX Supercross Legacy Track in Toronto

52 Tim Ingleby and team HILL builds a cinema in the woods and learns lessons about play and gamechangers

56 Harrison Lane presents joy as an act of resistance

64 Calls for articles for On Site review 45: housing and 46: travel. deadlines for proposals noted

the cover: Metis — Mark Dorrian and Adrian Hawker, in Edinburgh. Two drawings they are doing on light boxes

the masthead: Alexa McCrady’s eternally playful sculptures, this one, Antennae. it is 66” high.

print copies: things of beauty and a different reading experience than on a screen. Easier for one thing.

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