How can we create opportunities for children to be active through play in the Outer Hebrides?
This project "Design for Island Life" was a practice to use research methods through the exploration of Health and Well-Being in The Outer Hebrides. The Hebrides are a group of islands off the west coast of Scotland with a total population of around 28,000 people. The main Islands are Lewis, Harris, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay and Barra.
Our aim was to encourage children to be more active outdoors whilst having fun.
We created Lumino, a travelling illuminated playground service for North Lewis with a focus on Autumn and Winter as it gets dark early and kids have less opportunity to play outdoors and be active in general. The modular playground furniture contains lights within as an added feature to offset the darkness. The playground would also host geolocated workshops in order to share skills amongst the local community.
Partners: Archipelago 136, InDI, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, The Glasgow School of Art
Themes: Health, Well-being, community, environment, play
Year: 2016
Team: Paola Lazcano, Yi Liu, Wu Yun, Lisa Tk
Team: Paola Lazcano, Yi Liu, Wu Yun, Lisa Tk
We had a workshop with local mums from Ness, showing our preliminary storyboard ad concepts to them, also getting them to tell us their own experiences of play growing up on Lewis and how this compared with their own children.
The most important part was our workshop with nineteen kids in Lionel Primary School. We did a little icebreaker and then we asked them to collage their dream playground and to describe it afterwards. It was a great way for us to get insights from the kids in order to develop our final concept.
