Place means something to
children discovering their world, who they are, and where they belong. Sensitive
to their surroundings, children’s encounters with spaces and places are
immediate, multi-sensory, physical, emotional, and full of information. Place,
whether it is small or large, familiar or new, invites children to explore,
discover, make meaning, and learn; it shapes their understanding, experiences,
and ideas. A powerful way for them to know and understand themselves and their
world, place calls to them to climb, check out new perspectives, pour water over
sand and see what happens, stack sticks, use their whole bodies to measure a
space, and hypothesize about what happens
here.
Children are natural and
active placemakers. Their placemaking
is an open, exploratory process of transforming a space through play,
imagination, stories, and friendships that
brings new meaning to it, builds their knowledge of the world, and expands
their sense of self.
Children’s constructions are the most obvious expression of their placemaking
and initially what placemaking suggests to us.
Images of forts, hideouts, and dens come to mind, hiding places tucked into a
hedge or behind the curtain of low spreading boughs. Found across many
settings, special places may also be under tables, nestled among sand dunes, in the attic, enclosed by sofa cushions, or deep in the woods. Sometimes
ephemeral, children’s places may also be where they return physically and in
different seasons. Special places are sometimes enduring and remembered throughout life.
Seemingly empty spaces–under the stairs, the
corner of a lot, behind the garage, the depths of a snow pile–summon children and invite them to explore their potential; they fill in with their
imaginations. Qualities of space–openness, enclosure, height, scale, shape,
fragrances, sounds and silences, different textures, even
drops of water–suggest possibilities for what a space might become. An old, old
tree, a distant view, a rise in the landscape, a remembered story can envelop a
space and make an ordinary spot extraordinary. Likewise, something fascinating may call
out to a child or pose a question. The blurred pathway that crosses a clearing,
a place of brilliant light changing to deep shadow might inspire placemaking.
Placemaking-possibilities may be triggered
incidentally: stumbling on an old wooden crate, digging up pottery pieces, discovering
a dented hubcap, finding traces of past activities, or remembering the fragment
of a story or song. But the power of a place is itself a compelling invitation. Sunlight,
lacy shadows, or cool shade can summon placemaking. Subtle, unusual, and
capricious environmental conditions–wind, mist, springs, echoes–are qualities
that can add drama, mystery, and possibility for shaping space and supporting
exploration.
The
open-endedness of placemaking
supports a wide range of activity. Children hunt for and gather materials;
they build and modify their space; and they embellish it with finds and treasures.
They climb, chase and challenge one another. Stories live in the dens and
hideouts children create. New narratives about events of daily life, movies
seen, the lives of dolls, action figures, and cherished animals enter and
enliven life inside. Groups
form and friendships grow in the shelter of a camp, fort, or snow cave.
Play and placemaking are closely connected in
many ways but are also not the same. Clearly the forts, dens, and hideouts created
during placemaking become places for play, contexts for pretend play, and backdrops for games. But, at the same time, placemaking is the serious work of children
exploring, testing, understanding, and making their mark on the world.
More than Building
Placemaking goes well beyond building forts and
hideouts. In this dynamic process of exploration, change, and discovery, children
are making a place for themselves in the
world. They are mastering materials, building confidence and competence, forging
relationships, and shaping a sense of self.
German social intellectual
Walter Benjamin noted in 1928,
Children
are irresistibly drawn to the detritus generated by building, gardening,
housework, tailoring, or carpentry… In using these things they do not so much
imitate the works of adults as bring together, in the artifact produced in
play, materials of widely differing kinds of new, intuitive relationships.
Children thus produce their own small world of things within the greater one.
Children use materials and objects, their
knowledge of how the world works, and ingenuity in placemaking. Loose parts, found
objects, and discarded building materials are instrumental in transforming a
space. They use what’s at hand: bricks, boards, boxes, and blankets; clay,
cloths, crates, and cushions; sand, seeds, sticks, stones, string, and stumps; Legos,
leaves, and license plates.
Random as they might be, collected objects and
materials contain valuable and actionable information about altering a space
and realizing a vision. When they gather, move, and arrange materials; when
they dig holes; when they drag a piece of sheet metal, children experience properties
such as weight, mass, strength, and rigidity. They discover what different materials can do. Sticks
help outline boundaries; some sticks bend while others are brittle and don’t.
Blankets and branches span a distance; stones can weigh down a blanket; carefully
stacked stones become a tower.
In
exploring places, hideouts, and landscapes, children are constructing an understanding of space and themselves.
They measure space, size, and dimensions using their bodies, hands, eyes, and voices. Through
their movements, they know the prepositions of space: under, above, inside and out, through, between, and on top of. Being in or out, up,
down, or underneath, children encounter distant views and unusual perspectives,
uncover new routes, and make connections to another time or place. With
playmates, they work to make something big happen together. They share secrets, make-up ideas, negotiate how to work together, make up stories, layer in rules, and
take on roles.
Children come to know something about themselves
as well through placemaking. They test themselves
As placemakers, children are experimenters, agents
of change in charge of transformation. They find a spot that is undefined or
open to being redefined and dictate its meaning. As they incorporate new
materials and ideas, they continue to modify the space, its qualities, and
meaning. This opportunity, ordering the physical surroundings in ways that
express their own ideas and interests, is rare for children, but it engenders a feeling
of competence and satisfaction. That anonymous patch of dirt transformed into a
place with an original identity, yields a tangible, lasting sense of
accomplishment.
Often
children find something in a space that speaks to them of possibilities invites them to investigate their connection to the
world. In working that space, they develop
a relationship with it and come to know it, from
its smell, sounds, or silences and from what has taken place there. A
special place can stay with children when they are not there, over time, into their
adult lives. Who doesn’t remember a place from childhood, created or found; a
shelter for play, friendship, hiding; visited through changing seasons; and
revisited over time in our memories?
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