The Brussels English Primary (BEPS) playground project began by a request by the parent association to create a place on the playground for friends. “A friendship bench” The project was to be completely lead by the students at the school as well as the final decisions. Our design team was a group of 10 students, the student council, who are the voice for all the students in the school, each one representing a different class.
We worked with our design team during 3 workshops spanning 5 weeks, where they took the group ideas to the rest of the students. They put up posters after each meeting showing the projects progress. The final poster was for the entire student body to vote on their favorite ideas. During the final workshop the design team analyzed all the votes and choose the top three ideas. They then split into 3 groups and created scaled prototypes on printed plans of the playground representing our 3 possible location we discussed in the previous meetings.
We then took all the ideas, sketches and photos of the prototypes back to our studio and worked out two solutions, that met the dreams of all the students and the budget that was available. We then took this back to our design team, now serving as the client group. They weighed the pros and cons of each design c
arefully and with great scrutiny. Finally coming to a consensus on the “Flying Carpet” which was proposed as a low platform for 3 to 4 students. Covered with artificial grass and embedded mirrors to either give you the feeling of flying or to have a friend if you are alone! The final outcome was a great reunion between the wishes of the parents, the dreams of the children and the vision of designers.
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