WHO KNOWS MORE ABOUT PLAY THAN KIDS THEMSELVES?

In the pursuit of gaining fresh insights and inspiration, we decided to conduct our first Expert Panel. We invited 14 kids (our office staff's children) to become play experts for a fun day out, where we visited and thoroughly tested two MONSTRUM playgrounds in the Copenhagen area. The goal for the day was to get out from behind our screens and observe how kids actually play at our playgrounds - what works well and what could be improved? We were keen to evaluate and use our findings to create even better playgrounds in the future!

THE TWO PLAYGROUNDS

We visited The Garden in Espergærde - a garden that's grown out of proportion, where you can crawl on a giant grasshopper or into a big watering can and then jump on huge leaves & flowers. The second stop on our expert panel trip was The Eider Duck & Fishing Village in Taarbæk - a next-level school playground with a huge duck and a charming fishing village, complete with a lighthouse, boats, and fishing huts.

The kids took the matter of becoming playground testers for a day very seriously and were highly engaged in their "work"...needless to say, they also had loads of fun (and so did the grown-ups)!

THE OBSERVATIONS

As the MONSTRUM office crew represent a diverse range of skill sets and roles, we observed several different aspects of the playgrounds in use, including:

• Building materials and how they're wearing over time
• The difference in the durability of different wood sorts
• Routes the kids chose to navigate the playground
• Ways the kids use the play structures
• How kids assess risk
• The stories, that the kids created when interacting with the playground
• How children of different ages play
• Design challenges

Check out some highlights from the day in the video below.