Participants reflect on Urban95 London walking tour

In November last year, we took around 40 designers, engineers and other professions on an all-day walking tour of urban public space for play in East London. In this short video, participants from as far afield as Bhubaneswar, Bogota, Istanbul, Lima, Recife, Sao Paulo, Tel Aviv and Tirana explain how the study tour helped to bring alive the issue of how a city looks from a young child’s perspective.

Many were enthused by the power of practical, simple ideas such as the use of natural materials – sand, water or wood – as triggers for children’s imaginations, or how much children enjoyed running up and down small hills that had been built to separate areas of a playground.

The walking tour, which followed the Child in the City International Seminar, is part of our Urban95 programme’s work to explore how the design of urban environments can be made more welcoming for young children and families. Read more reflections on the event in our blog here.