"Tossed" is a design for a playscape that premotes play through exploration. For this project I developed a theory about play that stated that the best way a child can play and learn is when they are able to do so by themselves, without any restrictions. In that way they are able to fully explore what they are capable of and have the freedom to fail, an essential part of learning.
I decided I would achieve this by creating a field of climbable blocks that gave children the ability to challenge themselves. The idea was that as a child worked their way through the blocks, the difficulty of their path would change based on what the child was comfortable with. If they did not want to jump down one and a half feet to the block in front of them, they could turn to the right and take a simple step up to a block six inches higher than the one they were on.
Half way through the design I asked myself, where did the blocks come from? To answer this question I decided to place myself it the mind of a child and write a story from their point of view. In it, a child comes across a monster carving the blocks out of the ground and throwing them across a field. This led me to design what I call the carved and sheltered spaces. The carved space is the void that was left behind after the blocks were removed from the earth, and the sheltered space is a carve in the same language of the blocks that allows handicapped children to have the same experience as able bodied children.
