Call for projects Faire Paris / Faire Design 2018, organized by Pavillon de l'Arsenal

Playgrounds have become industrialised objectsthat resemble each other wherever you are, and especially with no soul, because they are just the expression of a production system.

Yet playgrounds are the first spaces of freedomfor our children in the public space.  The forge their relationships with the world and with their environment there.

So, we owe it to ourselves to put tension back between creativity and controlthat are present in each play area, by experimenting with new materialisations.

The playgrounds I propose innovate by typology:  They ally motor function games with dynamic games and visual stimulation.

They propose a first functional approximation for sliding, climbing, crawling…, and allow the insertion of more symbolic games:  sheltering oneself, hiding, playing a role….  They propose a second level of reading without representation, just in the suggestion to allow each child’s imaginationdo its work.

This playground is innovative in expression:

I create a common languagebetween the various game spaces without using a common theme.  The link between the various spaces is due to an optical effectcombined with the use of a conical form.

A strong graphic effect due to the stripes and the colour, tying them to each other, one colour on the inside, a different colour on the outside of each cone – a strong graphic effect that gives a dimension of experience to the games.

In addition, these rhythms, which form volumes, make a subtle balance possible between forms that are sufficiently closedto feel good inside, for example, playing roles, and sufficiently open to see the others playing and let the parents oversee them.

A playground of games that are innovative by concept:  I use the same metal formthat creates the stripe and that I simply repeat.  The games are therefore in a single material, easier to assemble and therefore more lasting.

The projects are in metal only because I don’t want to use compacted material or resin, and because metal can be recycled.

The finish is also lasting:  The steel is heat-treated lacquer (sanded finish, zinc primer and baked paint).

Playgrounds that are innovative by manufacture:  I use a semi-finished product with rounded corners, not prefabricated shapes that are over-designed and then assembled, in order to re-create a certain simplicity of expression.  An overall design and not an approximate collage, a design that is both expressive and singular.  Here are three examples to show the potential:

Rather than being the industrialisation icons of the city, this is done in such manner that the playgrounds become markers of the identity of the city and neighbourhoods where they are implanted.

Let us proceed in such manner that they becomepoints of friction between innovation and the establishment.