How does one create a child friendly living environment in the city, without getting stuck in coming back at the traditional Dutch "wipkip" or places to hang out for youngsters on the edge of the living zone (in Dutch 'hangplekken')?
In our mutual procedure to create child friendly cities, we take four steps, from basic trends to vision to a new way for a procedure to a new concept for a child friendly environment.
Trends
The four major trends:
- Most children on earth live in a city.
- The coming of the two-income family has a lot of consequences for the children in the city:
- * new! green orphans
* the battle for the street
* traffic jam at the primary school
* new need for (semi)private outer space
* how young people got overstrained - The need of a lifetime of learning
- The coming of the supersize generation
Vision
A young and lively scenery of the city. A city that is good for children, is good for everyone.
Method of working
Our new way of working is going around standard solutions through three principals:
- modern collectivity
- the new children's economy
- public areas as a challenge to learn, the forbidden fruits of urban exploration
Concept
The new concept that we suggest for child friendly cities the "Stedelijke Kinder Leefmilieuaanpak (STEKEL)". We deliver a serial possible parts and a schedule for the making of urban environments for children, which is based on:
- the adding of a layer of the learning from all the existing elements in a public place
- activities and facilities for children
- the amount and the kind of children in the area
- competition of the children in their use of the space
- (semi) private area for semi common use, modern collectivity
- the existing children's economy
As examples of the adding of "a layer of learning" to existing objects in public spaces we present the "Muziekhek van Dennis Lohuis; de Urban Trampoline van Karin Peters; en de case study A Walk With Maeve in The Pijp, Amsterdam".
Winning proposal
'The Forbidden Fruits of Urban Exploration' is selected by the TU (technical university) Delft as one of the winning proposals for Childstreet 2005.You can download the rapport 'The Forbidden Fruits of Urban Exploration' (PDF 1 Mb) here.
Authors
Stipo in collective bond with Butterfly Works, Ontwerpbureau Puntkomma en Lino Hellings. Key note speaker at the congress Childstreet 2005, September 2005 in Delft.
More information about this you can find at the website of Childstreet and at Hans Karssenberg - hans.karssenberg@stipo.nl