PS 32 Students Design Their Own 3-D Schoolyards
A number of 2nd through 5th grade classes participated in design workshops where each student made a 3-D model of their ideal place, schoolyard, park, community, or any kind of public space. It was an interactive planning workshop based on a participatory planning design charette by James Rojas. Fred Wolf, the PS 32 Garden Coordinator, worked with James on this project during his first year of graduate school and it changed the way he thinks about urban planning. The small 3-D models were built out of found objects and each student was asked to be purposeful in the placement of the objects because they had to explain their design after build time was over. This type of design workshop is intended to help people, of all ages and demographics, think critically about their ideal public spaces. It goes against traditional facilitated workshops where people verbally explain the change they want to see and allows them to engage their senses in the actual building and placement of public space components.
In the end each student participant made beautiful 3-D models of parks, schoolyards, cities, and playgrounds. These workshops are helping Fred with his thesis research on ecological schoolyard transformation. Notes were quickly taken as the students explained their designs and will be analyzed and included in his thesis. Fred hopes to replicate the workshops with parents and teachers in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!