Play for Democracy: Facilitating a Space for Children’s Involvement in Urban Development

Drawing on the quest to improve inclusion and social sustainability in urban planning process, a holistic approach on citizen participation in urban development is becoming increasingly important. One sector of society whose democratic rights remain overlooked in participatory action is children. It is therefore imperative to develop methods for processing the children’s rights to express their opinions when government is vested in the general population. This article analyzes the transdisciplinary project Play for Democracy (PfD), which was established in 2020. Building upon the five-stage design thinking model of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, its primary objective is to develop a new method for children to exercise their democratic rights in urban development process. The article traces the purpose of PfD and its expected impact on the broader socio-cultural context of urban development; it reviews the different phases of the four-week workshop; and it deduces a new method in which children can exercise their democratic rights through design. The method is extrapolated through text and diagram to be applicable to similar initiatives.

Iñaki Abalos

Professor in Residence, Department of Architecture, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Orazio Carpenzano

Dean, Facoltà di Architettura, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome

Yung Ho Chang

Professor of Architecture, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Winka Dubbeldam

Founder of Archi-Tectonics, Miller Professor and Chair of Architecture at Stuart Weitzman School of Design

Brian Ford

Professor Emeritus, Department of Architecture & Built Environment, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Hsinming Fung

Professor, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles CA, USA

Carlo Gasparrini

Professor of Urbanism, Dipartimento di Architettura, Universita' degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

Rahul Mehrotra

Professor of Urban Design and Planning, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Antoine Picon

Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology, GSD, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Mónica Ponce de León

Dean, School of Architecture, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA

Jane Rendell

Professor, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, London, UK

Peter Rich

Professor of Architecture, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa

Michael Speaks

Dean, School of Architecture, Syracuse University, Syracuse NY, USA

Martha Thorne

Hon FRIBA, Hon COAM, Senior Advisor for The OBEL Award

C David Tseng

Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Chiao-Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan

Sarah Whiting

Dean, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Li Xiangning

Deputy Dean, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Play for Democracy: Facilitating a Space for Children’s Involvement in Urban Development

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