Urban Playground, Toyo University, Japan

Urban Playground was a design thinking workshop led by Urban Gorillas for the CreaToyo event of Toyo University. The Workshop was part of a series of learning events in the context of the current European project A-Place which look at situations emerging from the pandemic in order to further explore the value of public spaces and the role of creativity in communities. The notion of Play was used as a point of departure in addressing the current limitations for social interactions.  The idea of Play was used to create a framework around the topic of community building in public places at times of social distancing.   Design thinking approach was used to develop proposals which articulated ideas of human connection through playful interventions in the city. Students used the notion of play to diagnose, highlight, record, and offer playful approaches to strengthen community building.