The LEGO Group is taking over four cities around the globe for World Play Day, highlighting the importance of play and designing welcoming spaces for children.
World Play Day promotes the importance of play for children, and the LEGO Group is going this year to celebrate, with pop-up activities in cities from Boston to Shanghai. Packaged with the playful events this year is messaging about an often-overlook aspect of helping kids play – designing spaces that encourage them to do so.
In its quest to revitalise play across the world, the LEGO Group has commissioned several studies to determine playing habits of children and the boundaries that prevent them from doing so. One of the latest of these studies focused on the role urban design plays in helping children play.
Findings included that 7 in 10 parents feel that their city does not offer sufficient safe and accessible play spaces for children, and that 1 in 3 children feel that adults designing urban spaces do so without considering the needs of children. And 36% of children surveyed think that their cities prioritise cars over people, effectively limiting options for safe play. The LEGO Group is determined to help change this.
On June 11, the International Day of Play, the LEGO Group is taking over spaces in London, Berlin, Shanghai and Boston as part of its Build the Change initiative, which encourages children to reimagine their cities.
“Play should not be limited to homes and schools,” said LEGO Chief Product and Marketing Officer Julia Goldin. “It should extend into our streets, parks and public spaces. However, our research shows that children often feel overlooked in urban design. This World Play Day we’re providing kids with a platform to share their brilliant ideas, transforming their bold concepts into playful experiences that everyone can enjoy.”
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The four cities each have their own unique activities to progress this goal, with a host of science and engineering internet celebrities joining in each spot — Mark Rober headlines this group of ‘Playmakers’ with his appearance in Boston.
In Boston, the Rose Kennedy Greenway — a 1.5 mile stretch of greenspace cutting through a major road in the heart of the city — is becoming a playground full of building activities designed to show how creativity can brighten up any corner of a city.
London has opened the Play Pavilion, which will be open at the Serpentive Gallery in Hyde Park through August, promising an immersive environment that aims to help children visit a world shaped by imagination. Sessions will be running so that children can get hands-on with LEGO brick building activities.
Shanghai is making use of its river, as its waterfront is dotted by play spaces that include everything from interactive challenges to fun structures on display.
In Berlin, plain urban spaces have been transformed into places inspired by rhythm and sports with plenty of its own pop-up play zones to get kids playing.
These activities all aimed to provide a splash of fun for the two-thirds of children who feel their cities lack engaging places to play. While not permanent installations, the pop-up activities are a way to get children playing and to raise awareness about the need for playful spaces in cities.
Street artist Joe Hill has created a glimpse at what a city built for play could look like, via an optical illusion of a bridge floating high above the city. The contents of the city — houses made of cake, giant lizards serving as busses and hovercrafts to dodge traffic — might not be the most practical of urban designs, but they highlight the importance of designing spaces to be fun and welcoming.
The LEGO Group isn’t stopping on World Play Day, either. In all four cities, the company has invested in philanthropic efforts. Boston will see new play-based learning offerings in its public libraries; London continues to offer play activies including at the Play Pavillion; Shanghai will receive play-based learning experiences for migrant children; and Berlin hopes to reach over 17,000 individuals with its play-based learning initiatives.
For those looking to celebrate World Play Day outside of these four cities, LEGOLAND Resorts across the world are hosting the first LEGO Festival, which asks children to make a Play Pact. It’s both much less and just as serious as it sounds, asking children to build more, laugh louder, explore endlessly and play always. LEGOLAND California is running a pop-up event in collaboration with Nike to combine playing with LEGO bricks and sports.
Beyond LEGOLAND Resorts, LEGOLAND Discovery Centres and community partners are hosting their own World Play Day festivities. There’s also a LEGO Education World Play Day Educator Toolkit available free to teachers to help implement play-based learning in their classrooms.
This all stems from Build the Change, a social impact program by the LEGO Group and the LEGO Foundation. The program has also created a ‘how to’ guide for urban planners designed to share children’s ideas for more play-inclusive city spaces. This guide can be found here.
World Play Day might only be one day a year, but the messaging behind it doesn’t have to be limited to June 11. Even as the pop-up events get taken down, they serve as an important reminder to take some time and play as often as you can. And if you are doing that with LEGO bricks, support the playful work of Blocks and buy them using our affiliate links.