25% Play

On September 11 Annelies Vaneycken, doctoral student in design will present her ongoing doctoral thesis during a 25% seminar. The focus of the thesis is to investigate if children’s play can be used as a method in participatory art and design processes.

Annelies Vaneycken on her thesis:

“The genesis and ratification by most Western countries of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since the 1990s plead for children’s participation in society, challenging designers to facilitate this process. To this date most methodologies for participatory design projects have been designed by adults for adults. This PhD study addresses designing for and with children. In particular, this PhD study focuses on children as experts in the field of ´free play’, and how this expertise might be turned into methodological frameworks and models for participatory art and design projects/processes in/on public space.

This practical based PhD project in Design has two objectives: 1) it aims to develop a methodological framework that enables working with children in participatory design projects/processes in/on public space with a particular focus on free play; and 2) it aims to transfer this knowledge by training other designers working in this context.
The research platform ‘Office for Public Play’ has been established in order to address and problematise the research questions, www.officeforpublicplay.org.”

Kids in Space: what children can teach us about the design of public spaces
Opponent: professor Erling Björgvinsson, HDK/PARSE
September 11, 9.00-12.00
HDK, Kristinelundsgatan 6-8, Göteborg (room 608)
The seminar will be held in English