Improving everyday life:
Reimagining the void deck through the eyes of a child
Playgrounds are specifically designed for children, resulting in their narrow openings and guarded railings becoming an obstacle for parents to join their children at the playground. Why should design cause parents to miss out on creating precious memories with their child?
A playscape in and along void decks facilitate spontaneous play by the child, and is unobstructed to allow parents to join in the play and bond with their children.
Details
Tools: Rhino 6, Keyshot 9, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro
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Timeline: 13 weeks
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Project type: Student project (individual)
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Skills: Analytical Observation, Spatial Design, User Experience
Project Summary
Brief:
This design brief started applying critical analysis to everyday life situations to identify opportunities. Next, we were to conduct thorough user research and interviews to understand the problem. The last step is to design the solution.
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What I did:
After observing several situations, I identified the lack of interaction between parents and children at the playground and designed a playscape in the HDB void deck as a response.
Design Research
Analytical Observation
9 everyday situations that possess opportunities to be improved by design were chosen. Situations were shortlisted after practising careful and critical observation.
Narrowing in
3 situations with the most potential were chosen. Further observations to deeper understand the situation and opportunities were conducted, and it was followed by building journey maps, personas and layouts.
Diving Deeper
The playground situation where there is a lack of parent-child interaction was chosen as it presented the most opportunity. User shadowing, mapping and interviews were conducted to identify 3 main problems with the current situation.
"How might a playground that encourages the spontaneous play between parent and child look like?"
Parents want to be part of play with their child but the playground excludes them from playing and making precious memories with them. How might we resolve this?
Ideation
Breadth of Ideas
8 different ideas to improve interaction between parent and child at the playground were done to explore the different ways play can be interactive.
Shortlist Ideas
3 ideas that each explored different possibility of play were chosen and developed further with on-site case studies as reference, such as play integrated into void decks, undulating domes, and parametric light manipulating structures.
Idea Refinement
The void deck was chosen as the final site and numerous iterations were done to fine tune the design, material and structure placements. Key considerations included incorporating the existing design language of the void deck, planning various possible spontaneous play journeys, and most importantly, reducing barriers to include parents in play while maintaining safety.
Outcome
Overview of void deck case study redesigned
The void deck becomes a play area that encourages spontaneous and imaginative play. The contrasting narrow and wide spaces in modern HDBs are used to create distinct zones of play - dynamic, static and interactive - supported by the various existing user journeys that are transformed into play choices. The colorful foam play structures engage in a dialogue with the existing geometric design language of the void deck as well as provide safety reassurance.
The child is presented with the freedom to choose his own journey through the playscape.
The pipe forest uses the architectural language of the void deck to foster dynamic play.
The bench in the void deck is reinterpreted as a seesaw which enables parent and child interaction.
The verticality of the void deck is explored to allow intimate spontaneous play between parent and child.
This project was done under the tutors Christian Boucharenc and Tan Sixiu for the module ID2106