August 2022
In the summer of 2022, we worked with students from the University of Sheffield’s Transforming and Activating Places internship programme to further develop and test ideas for our Empowering Children in Design Through Gaming approach, to using gaming as a way to introduce children to design and placemaking.
In collaboration with the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield we launched a new version of our workshop, which was offered free to members of the Sheffield community, running as part of their summer programme for children and families. We also brought in the young people, Isabella and Dexter, who had co-designed and co-facilitated our original workshop as critical friends to help us shape this new version of the workshop.
We held the workshop, The State of Play, in August 2022, with a focus on the design of playful spaces and landscapes. This publication captures The State of Play workshop journey and the wonderful work produced by participating children and their parents and guardians.
July 2023
In the summer of 2023, Sam and Piotr, students from University of Sheffield’s Transforming and Activating Places internship programme, worked with us to iterate ‘The State of Play’ workshop further. This included collaborating with our partners Karakusevic Carson Architects, with whom we had collaborated on our gaming workshop at The Willows on Broadwater Primary School within the context of neighbourhood regeneration, to run another The State of Play workshop in July 2023.
Through this new collaboration with KCA and the TAP programme, we were able to offer a free workshop to local families in London. Using a variation of The State of Play workshop, we hosted a group of young children aged 9 – 11 and their accompanying parents and guardians at KCA’s office.
We have captured the workshop in a short insert publication, which describes the activities and innovations of this session of The State of Play.