Child, play, and urban space: a historical overview and a holistic paradigm for child-centered urbanism

Abstract

ABSTRACT The relationship between children and the city is critical for both. Not only do different built environments shape different childhoods, but child-friendliness is a sign of overall city quality. Extensive research in the fields of environmental psychology and children’s geographies has highlighted the significance of urban space as children’s habitat. Cities, on the other hand, have been designed since modernity largely without taking children’s needs into account. To bridge the gap between research on children and the practice of urban design we need a holistic paradigm unifying discourses on childhood and on play with urbanism itself. I call this paradigm Spielraum. I focus on selected historical cases of child-centered practices including Red Vienna’s housing complexes, Van Eyck’s Amsterdam playgrounds, and the “Stop the Child Murder” movement in the Netherlands. Based on these and other pioneering examples, I propose four rubrics of urban design practice towards a Spielraum city.