We’ve moved on to another project review piece; this time our focus is not a school building, but a play landscape embedded right in the heart of the city, tucked into a residential fabric: Wired Scape. What makes projects like this interesting is that they stop being “just a playground for children” and start turning into a neighborhood-scale public magnet. In a way, they set up a small urban stage—one where children, parents, teenagers, and older residents all end up sharing the same ground, even if only briefly, throughout the day. Wired Scape seems to aim exactly for that: by bringing together nature metaphors, fluid geometries, and the idea of open-ended play, it tries to establish a public destination that speaks to users of all ages.

Wired Scape is located within a residential district of Guangzhou, China, and is presented as a designed and built project by 100architects (Shanghai). The site area is 1,550 square meters. The documentation is also shared transparently—down to the design team and project management team—which makes it easier to read the project not merely as a “visual show,” but as a real practice of construction and coordination.

Project Focus and Significance

Wired Scape’s main agenda is clearly to break away from conventional playground templates (a few standard swings, a slide, rubber surfacing, fenced around the edges). Here, play is not treated as the sum of individual pieces of equipment; it is approached more like a topography-adjacent “field composition.” Two primary sources of inspiration are highlighted: forest and stream. These themes are not recreated through literal landscape imitation; instead, they are reinterpreted through abstract geometries and sculptural forms. The sense of “forest” is built through the tree-like structures gathered at the center, while the sense of “water” is expressed through the curving, colorful flow lines embedded in the ground plane.

The urban value of this approach becomes clearer at a specific point: children’s play areas often end up either overly controlled or overly sterile. Yet a child’s ability to “read” a space, generate their own routes, and make small decisions while moving from one place to another (height, bridges, shade, openness, movement) can be developmentally meaningful. Wired Scape’s emphasis on open-ended play suggests an intention to shape an environment that triggers motor and cognitive skills at the same time; actions like climbing, exploring, jumping, and sliding are deliberately foregrounded.

Design Features and Spatial Composition

The most iconic element of the project is the set of four sculptural “tree” structures gathered at the heart of the site. These structures are described as being formed by pipes spiraling around a central core, producing tactile, woven spheres—volumes that also resemble (almost delicious) candies. What’s compelling here is that the structure functions both as play equipment and as a canopy. In other words, it is not a single-purpose object; it generates vertical play, shade, and a strong spatial “focus” at once. Moreover, by connecting these four structures with suspension bridges, the project creates layers—shifting the experience from a flat park surface into a multi-level landscape of exploration.

The ground plane, meanwhile, works like a large pattern system that holds the project together: curving lines “stitch” different zones into one another. These lines are not only a visual graphic; they also act as a wayfinding language, offering hints about circulation and pauses. In some places, the lines open into a small plaza; in others, they lead to a resting platform; in others, they intensify as you approach a play element. This kind of “spatial storytelling through the ground” is especially powerful for children, because a child often reads space not through signage but through surface cues and the feeling of edges.

Right in front of this central composition, there is a lowered “sunken plaza” definition—described in the text through metaphors like a “playful amphitheater” or a “depressed lake.” This move introduces something we rarely see in the city: a small social bowl inside a playground, with potential for gathering and performance. For children, this bowl becomes a micro-topography where even simple movements like running and rolling feel more exciting; for adults, it offers a place to sit, observe, wait, and strike up a short conversation.

User Experience: The Idea of Multi-Generational Play

Wired Scape’s ambition is not aimed only at children; it tries to produce a multi-generational environment. For children, an active play repertoire is considered: climbing, jumping, sliding, and exploration. For parents and caregivers, the narrative mentions shaded seating areas and clear sightlines—valuable in terms of “comfortable supervision,” an issue often neglected in playgrounds. Because in a park where the adult is not physically comfortable, supervision tends to swing either toward over-intervention or toward complete detachment; neither outcome is ideal for the child.

The project’s more “urban” side appears in the way it also attracts young adults: sculptural aesthetics, photogenic details, and social appeal. There are two edges to this. On one hand, it can increase a sense of ownership over the public space and give the neighborhood an identity. On the other hand, crowds drawn purely by visual attraction may reduce children’s play comfort. The balance here is shaped by zoning and the relationship between seating and circulation. The project text highlights multiple entry points, generous shading, and different functional islands; this can function as a strategy that makes it easier for people to disperse even during busy moments.

Amenity Diversity and the Play Repertoire

The site also includes classic play elements: swings, see-saws, spring riders, carousel-like spinning components, and even a round table-tennis table. This diversity matters because not every child is drawn to the same type of play. Some children love climbing; some seek rhythmic motion (swings); some enjoy social competition (table tennis); and some participate in play simply by watching. It is also noted that sculptural seating elements are treated not just as “benches,” but as part of the play experience; I find this valuable, because seating is not merely passive furniture—sometimes for a child it becomes a boundary, sometimes a stage, sometimes a surface to hide behind.

At this point, a small caveat is worth adding: a large number of amenities can make maintenance and safety management more difficult. Each new element adds another line to the periodic inspection checklist. Still, the fact that 100architects frames this project at the scale of a “neighborhood intervention” likely implies that management capacity is also considered as part of the design. In projects like this, real sustainability is often hidden not only in materials, but in the operational routine.

Night Use and Transformation Through Light

One of the striking aspects of Wired Scape is its night scenario. The narrative describes decorative lighting embedded into surfaces and the ground, following selected lines and turning the site into a “glowing landscape.” This is not only an aesthetic gesture; it also becomes a layer that shapes perceptions of safety in the evening. Where the light concentrates and where it falls quiet directly changes how children and adults use the space after dark. Of course, the critical city-scale question here is: has the lighting been resolved without producing light pollution or disturbing nearby housing? It is hard to read this definitively from the text, but the emphasis on “embedded, decorative lighting that follows selected lines” suggests an intention toward a more controlled lighting language.

Ecological Integration and the Question of “Naturalness”

This project calls nature not through plant density, but mostly through nature metaphor and biomorphic composition. Here, the forest is not the trees themselves so much as a sculptural re-production of the idea of “tree.” Flowing water is represented without an actual water element, through the language of movement on the ground. The strength of this approach may be a reduced maintenance burden and a more stable, four-season spatial performance. The weakness is that children’s contact with real ecological processes can remain limited. If there is a real canopy of shade trees nearby, small biological islands where soil contact is possible, or at least a “nature observation” corner, the project could establish a much more balanced child–nature relationship. The 100architects text includes expressions suggesting that the structures wrap around existing trees and create tactile volumes, which hints that existing trees have been incorporated into the design.

In my own reading practice, I like to move discussions of projects like this beyond the “hard surface vs. soft surface” binary and instead talk through “how a child perceives nature.” Sometimes a child’s sense of nature does not come only from stepping on soil; it can also come from hearing how wind produces sound in a void, noticing how shadows shift through the day, and touching different textures. Since Wired Scape strongly emphasizes tactile richness, it carries a powerful potential for multi-sensory experience.

In this article, I want to introduce the book Designing Streets for Kids—a bedside reference I benefited from repeatedly in my PhD thesis—without stopping at the level of “what does it say?” I aim to explain in some depth which problem field it touches, what kind of methodological language it builds, and how it can be used in the field. Throughout the text, I take the book’s own framework and emphases as my basis.

What kind of book is Designing Streets for Kids?

The book approaches streets not merely as an infrastructure scheme that regulates vehicle flow, but as a public space that carries—and sometimes compresses—the everyday lives of children and caregivers. The critical shift here is not to completely reject the discourse of “transport efficiency,” but to force transport to be considered together with children’s safety, comfort, curiosity, and right to development. The book states that streets can offer children and caregivers opportunities for play, inspiration, personal growth, and social interaction.

This approach moves street design away from being only a debate about an “engineering standard” and brings it closer to a discussion of quality of life and rights. The book clearly describes that a city’s physical infrastructure, as well as its policies and programs, need to align with principles for creating streets that are safe, healthy, comfortable, and usable, as well as inspiring and educational. This sentence is almost like the book’s backbone: not only design detail, but governance and implementation intelligence sit at the same table.

Urban95 and the Istanbul connection: where the book touches Türkiye

As part of the 2019 guide prepared by NACTO GDCI, the book makes the Urban95 program and the implementations in Istanbul visible. It specifically notes that between 2016–2019, the municipalities of Beyoğlu, Maltepe, Sarıyer, and Sultanbeyli took a leading role; universities, private research initiatives, and civil society provided support; and the Bernard van Leer Foundation brought together more than 100 people and more than 20 institutions through active collaboration.

This section prevents the book from feeling like an “imported text of good intentions” and places it within a framework that has counterparts in Türkiye, has been tried, and has real actors. For readers, this matters; because what we struggle with most in the field is usually not finding a technical solution, but making the solution compatible with local institutional language and opening it to implementation.

Thinking from 95 cm: the book’s strongest metaphor

The book’s most memorable call is “thinking from 95 cm”. It may look like a slogan, but it is actually a methodological proposal that re-tests design decisions at a child’s scale. Indeed, under the heading “ten steps you can take,” the book positions thinking from 95 cm directly as an action item for improving streets in a child-friendly way.

Here, 95 cm is not merely a measurement; it is the sum of things like eye level, risk perception, the balance of fear and curiosity, patience for waiting, and the ability to step over a curb edge. What an adult passes off as a “small detail” (a broken paver, accumulated trash, sign clutter) can turn into a barrier that changes a child’s route. The book’s emphasis that neglect produces a more direct problem for children—who are closer to the ground—also supports this scale discussion.

The book’s backbone: Street Design Strategies

The book proposes a “strategy set” for redesigning streets and groups it under five main headings: Improve, Protect, Reclaim, Activate, Expand. The value of this approach is that it does not suggest a single magic intervention; on the contrary, it argues that effective design often requires multiple strategies to be applied together, and that interventions can range in scale from low-cost measures to major investment projects.

I read this as a logic of “incremental improvement and compound solutions.” Especially because municipalities’ budget, tender, and maintenance capacity fluctuate, a design intelligence that starts small, grows, rehearses, and learns tends to work more sustainably in the field.

1) Improve: basic needs and everyday comfort

The foundation of the Improve strategy is that pedestrian infrastructure should be “usable and continuous.” The book is clear about sidewalk construction and improvement: it states that sidewalks should be made safe and accessible; built where they do not exist; widened if they are too narrow; and old, broken sections that undermine accessibility should be renewed.

The emphasis here is not only on moving, but on being able to stay on the street. It explains in detail that comfortable and usable streets should include seating, wayfinding, reliable public transport, climate-appropriate shade and sheltered areas, and facilities such as toilets and drinking fountains. These items are often thought of as a “park amenities list”; the book turns them into everyday design components of the street.

2) Protect: speed management and safe speed

Protect is where the book states the safety side most directly. “Speed kills” is positioned not as a claim, but almost as a starting principle of design. There are two critical tools here: lowering the speed limit and building the design to match that speed. The book recommends lowering speed limits to 30 km/h and aligning the design with a 30 km/h speed, stating that higher speeds narrow the field of view and affect reaction times.

At the same time, speed does not drop just with signs; physical and visual narrowing is needed. It notes that traffic lanes should not be wider than 3 meters, and that urban elements that create visual narrowing—trees, street furniture, rows of buildings—can increase driver attention. These recommendations are a strong example of the “soft-looking” side of landscape and urban design that nevertheless affects behavior directly.

3) Reclaim: making room for people

Reclaim is about redistributing street space. The book suggests reclaiming streets in full: pedestrianizing streets by closing them to vehicles and opening them to people, or designing them as shared streets for low speeds of 10–15 km/h. It also builds a redistribution language that aims to move more people using less space, through solutions such as bus lanes, protected bike lanes, or sidewalks rather than mixed traffic lanes.

This section is especially useful for cities where objections like “loss of parking” rise sharply; because it moves the discussion from a comfort dispute to the public value of space and the efficiency of mobility. It also clearly states that reclaimed space can be designed for “pause and play.”

4) Activate: inviting play and learning onto the street

Activate is the part that distinguishes the book from an ordinary traffic safety guide. It explains that child-friendly streets are interesting, joyful, and educational; and that streets can be attractions in themselves, not only corridors to get from one point to another.

This “attraction” idea finds its counterpart in street furniture and material decisions. It offers concrete hints such as patterns on ground surfaces; using vertical surfaces as a canvas for murals; and handling fences and walls in ways that can draw children’s interest through color, planting, and drawings. It also emphasizes that street furniture is not only for sitting, but can provide opportunities—especially at transit stops—to combine play and learning.

There is also a subtle critique here against confining “play” only to playgrounds; when play seeps into everyday routes, children’s relationship with the city becomes more natural and more continuous.

5) Expand: integrating adjacent spaces

Expand means thinking of the street not as an isolated section but together with its surroundings. The book frames this strategy as integrating adjacent spaces. This is an approach that allows impact to grow through small joints at “break points” such as school surroundings, pocket parks, building entrances, vacant lots, and areas in front of stops. In practice, the fastest gains often come from here; because without changing major infrastructure, spatial continuity and program continuity can still be established.

Nature and landscape: green infrastructure is not decoration, it is a performance component

One of the book’s strongest aspects from a landscape perspective is that it treats green infrastructure not as an aesthetic “add-on,” but as a component that produces performance in terms of health, climate, and water management. In the section on nature and landscape arrangements, it states that green infrastructure forms a buffer against pollutants, reduces stormwater runoff and heat island effects, and provides diverse opportunities for children and caregivers.

At a more micro scale, it says that landscape elements such as planters and tree pits give children a chance to connect with nature. This sentence may look simple, but it actually points to something important: establishing contact with nature not as “once in the park,” but as an everyday contact on the street strengthens children’s environmental perception and spatial memory. Landscape architecture has argued this for years; the book places it inside street design.

Temporary interventions: opening streets to children and rehearsing

The book recommends testing through pilots and rehearsal applications before permanent investment; it specifically notes that street solutions can be tried before investing in permanent implementation. This approach fits the “risk-averse” nature of local governments: measure first, see, improve; then make it permanent.

Under the heading of temporarily opening streets to children, it states that closing streets to traffic and opening them to people creates opportunities for play and social interaction, strengthens intergenerational ties, reduces air and noise pollution, and increases safety. It also emphasizes that play streets, without requiring additional programming, allow neighborhood residents to use streets spontaneously.

There are practical details as well: seasonal permits and facilitation such as fee waivers should be considered; closures are recommended to be planned six to eight weeks in advance. The suggestion of “loose parts” (cardboard boxes, fabric, balls, chalk) as unstructured play materials is a reminder that design can be strong without depending on expensive equipment.

Participation, transparency, and ethics: the book’s governance language

One of the reasons this book is valuable is that it frames participation not as a “presentation meeting,” but as a partnership spread across every step of the process. It clearly states that children and caregivers should be included in all stages, including planning, design, and policy updates; and it emphasizes that involving parents and neighborhood residents from the very beginning builds ownership. The call to include, depending on local context, children with disabilities, migrants, and marginalized communities also strengthens the book’s inclusivity.

On the ethical side, it draws attention to establishing children’s participation through voluntariness and consent, and to issues such as photo and sensitive data security. This is a practical reminder especially for academics and municipal teams doing fieldwork.

What does the book promise in practice?

Short answer: it helps you decide. It builds a kind of “design logic” for questions like which street to intervene in, where to start, what impact a given intervention might create, and how to scale it at a neighborhood level. The ten-step recommendation set is a good example: improving crosswalks, building wide and accessible sidewalks, adding trees and landscape arrangements, reducing speed through design, prioritizing children in policies, and thinking from 95 cm—bringing multiple layers together under the same framework.

I read this approach as connecting the “piece-by-piece works” we often see in urban management through a single backbone. A sidewalk renewal, a speed reduction, adding shade—each looks like a small job when viewed alone. But when they are tied to the same goal on the same street, a change of identity emerges.

Who should especially read it?

The target audience of this book is broad; but for some groups it is almost a resource that “should stay on the table”:

• Transportation, zoning, and parks and gardens units in municipalities; because the book builds design, policy, and operations into the same sentence.
• Landscape architects and urban designers; because it treats green infrastructure as part of street performance.
• Teams working on school area safety; because tools like speed management and temporary closures are highly implementable.
• Academics and students; because its language of participation, ethics, inclusivity, and criteria naturally connects with field research.

A small method suggestion while reading this book

Rather than consuming the book in one go, reading it in parallel with the field tends to be more efficient. First, treat the ten steps like a checklist and walk along a street, marking them. Then choose which of the five strategy headings will work together on that street. After that, if possible, test it with a temporary rehearsal application; observe whether it produces play and social interaction. This reading style turns the book from “shelf knowledge” into a design decision.

Bibliographic note and a remark

Designing Streets for Kids is a design guide that brings NACTO GDCI’s 2019 framework to Turkish readers through the Urban95 approach and with traces of implementation experience in Istanbul. The language of the text is technical but not dry; by following small details from time to time, it reminds us how a street grows inside a child’s world.

To read and download the book, click here.

We’re wedged between enormous slabs of concrete. Between facades that are tall, glossy, perfectly smooth… Even the sound of children sometimes disappears without an echo—because there’s no void left to carry that echo. There was a time when we thought what we called “the city” was the street, and what we called the street was life itself. Now the city feels more like a corridor we simply pass through; a circulation diagram that links enclosed parking garages to elevators, to security gates. So where do children fit into this diagram? At the edge of the map—off to the side, in a corner that has been “deemed suitable.” And of course on signs as well: “Children’s Park.” How easily we say it. Park. Play. Child. Three words, and we soothe our conscience.

There’s little greenery left for us. If any remains, it’s only a tiny trace at the edge of our sight. If it remains, it remains in a pot on the windowsill. Sometimes it survives as the make-up of a housing complex landscape: two strips of lawn, three stunted trees, and, in the middle, a noble olive tree… a layout that looks “well-kept,” yet feels like plastic the moment you touch it. Children touching soil, getting to know mud, being able to bend and twist a branch without snapping it, feeling the weight of stones in their hands, standing at the edge of a pit and saying “if water filled this, it would become a lake”… These have turned into luxuries of the city. And what I call a luxury is, in fact, the most basic human state: to make contact, to explore, to try, to fall, to get back up. For a child, play is exactly that. Yet we sterilized play. We packaged play. We delivered play like a product that comes with a warranty certificate (See Figure 1).

Worse still: as we reduced green space, we narrowed play as well. Cities grew, childhood shrank. I could phrase that sentence like a poet, but this is not about poetry; it’s about a choice we repeat every single day. Huge projects, huge roads, huge interchanges. “Crazy projects” everywhere, and it’s as if we’ve all gone a little mad, becoming fanatics of capitalism… And what’s set aside for children in our cities is usually “leftover pieces.” A gap is found on the plan; into it go two swings, a slide, and a brightly colored surface… Then comes the line: “We did it for the children.” It gets marketed as a prestige project. Is the child’s right only as large as whatever is left over after our own comfort? While the city’s most expensive square meters are reserved for cars, billboards, and shopfronts, the place that falls to children is often a patch with no shade, no protection from the wind; a space that turns to ice in winter and burns in summer.

Creativity Needs Uncertainty

The presence of a park doesn’t prove that everything has been done right. As the number increases, justice doesn’t necessarily increase. In fact, sometimes as the number goes up, the content becomes even more uniform. The same play set, the same color, the same plastic… One almost wishes the system produced the children in factories too: copy-and-paste children… as if the same childhood is being lived in every neighborhood. Yet what we call play is the child rebuilding the world in their own language. A stick becomes a sword, stones become “money,” a slope is declared a “mountain,” a shrub is named a “forest.” Creativity needs a bit of uncertainty. It needs a bit of emptiness. It needs flexibility, so the child can write their own scenario. But when we build “play areas” for children, we often impose the “play scenario” as well. Slide here, swing there, spin here, get off there… And that’s it. The play ends. The child doesn’t end, but the play ends.

We can talk about this as a “design” issue. Yes, a design issue. But the real issue is where our heart and our mind choose to stand in the city. Who are we building the city for? For the car, or for the human? And when we say “human,” do we also mean the child, the most fragile form of being human? How does a child take part in the city? How does a child read the city? A city designed at an adult’s eye level turns into a huge sense of unfamiliarity in a child’s world. The curb feels too high, speed frightens, noise drowns things out, the crowd crushes.The child becomes a guest in the city. And even being a guest has a time limit. After a while, the feeling of “home” fades. That’s when the street stops being the child’s street; the street becomes only a line you pass through.

We lost the streets. And as we lost the streets, we lost play as well. That’s why we took refuge in children’s parks. We replaced the street with the park. But the park was never the same thing as the street; it only made sense together with the street. Going to the park used to be a ritual; something would happen on the way. Now the park is not a destination, but a compensation. A place we take a child just so “they can get outside.” In winter, we can’t take them anyway. In the rain, we can’t take them anyway. In the evening, we can’t take them anyway. The child becomes like a being whose life in the city is restricted according to the seasons. Yet what we call a season is, for a child, a learning ground: the sound of the wind, the scent of a flower, the texture of a leaf, the warmth of the sun. We brought the seasons indoors too. We handed the child’s relationship with nature over to the light of screens. And then we complain that “the new generation is too digital.” We gave them the digital. We took the soil away.

Defending children’s rights in the city is, in many ways, defending a right to place. The child’s right to belong to the city… And that doesn’t end with building a park. It also means safe streets a child can walk on, routes they can cycle, the possibility of going to school alone, the courage to knock on a friend’s door, a small pocket of “spatial freedom” in the neighborhood that feels like it’s theirs. If these are missing, a park on its own becomes nothing more than consolation. And if a park exists but its content is monotonous and it suffocates creativity, then the park still isn’t enough. Because a child is not only releasing energy; a child is also building meaning. Play is as much a way of thinking as it is physical movement.

When we say that today’s playgrounds kill creativity, some people think we’re exaggerating. “Come on,” they say, “a slide is a slide.” No. A slide is not just a slide. A slide can be an object, yes, but play is not the object itself. Play is the relationship built with the object. If you reduce that relationship to a single template, you narrow the child’s capacity to imagine. In places where everything is predetermined, the child becomes a “user,” not a “maker.” And if they can’t be a maker, they can’t be a maker in the city either. They can’t claim the city as their own. They can’t negotiate with it.They can’t even imagine that a place might change according to them. Yet the city, in essence, is the product of exactly this negotiation: different needs, different speeds, different ages, being able to live together.

Perhaps the heaviest issue is this: we don’t place the child at the center of urban planning; we turn the child into an “afterthought” of urban planning. And then we hang posters that say “child-friendly city.” But a child-friendly city cannot be built with symbols alone. A child-friendly city lives in the language of decisions. It shows up in the lines of the budget. It sits in the priorities of the zoning plan. It is present in the width of a sidewalk, in the placement of a crosswalk, in whether a speed limit can actually be enforced. A child-friendly city allows a child to make mistakes, because a child learns by making mistakes. We, on the other hand, lock the child indoors to bring mistakes down to zero. Yes, mistakes drop to zero; but learning drops to zero as well.

We imagine what is good. A beautiful landscape, good air, a clean environment, and humane people… But we stop at imagining. That is the part that wounds me the most. We don’t call what we imagine a “right.” We don’t call it a “demand.” We don’t call it a “struggle.” As if what is good will come to us on its own. Yet the city doesn’t become better on its own. The city leans toward where the powerful choose to stand. A child is powerless. A child doesn’t vote. A child doesn’t generate rent. A child doesn’t increase the value of a plot of land; in fact, to some, a child “produces noise.” That’s why defending children’s rights is also, in a way, speaking against “power.” It means unsettling things a little. It means being able to say, “Just because it has always been this way doesn’t mean it has to stay this way.”

As Mehmet Emin Daş, I don’t think this is only an aesthetic debate. Landscape architecture is not simply about planting trees; landscape architecture should also be a representative of spatial justice that organizes life. A child’s right in the city should be one of the most fundamental concerns of landscape. Because landscape builds what is public, and what is public is the place where a child ties themselves to the future. If the child becomes invisible in public space, then an adult who will defend the public in the future doesn’t really grow up either. A society whose childhood has been narrowed ends up narrowing its tomorrows too.

So what are we going to do? Will we talk about the number of parks again? About square meters again? Of course we have to measure; what we don’t measure can’t be managed. But alongside measurement, we also need a scale of conscience. In every neighborhood, a high-quality green space that a child can reach within five minutes… I’m choosing the word “quality” very deliberately. Quality means shade, safety, maintenance, seasonal usability, material variety, the presence of natural elements, opportunities for free play, contact with water and soil, and the pedagogical ability to manage small risks. Quality means allowing a child to build themselves. A play space shouldn’t offer only equipment; it should also offer elements that generate scenarios: loose materials (stones, sticks, pinecones), topography, small mounds, hiding corners, vegetative texture, and surfaces that change with the seasons. Spaces that are too sterile, too smooth, too “disciplined” don’t make the child safer; they make the child more fragile.

Increasing green space is not only a matter of “how many trees” either. Green space should be imagined as a network, like a living web. Parks shouldn’t be islands; they should be life corridors that connect to one another. A child should be able to walk from one place to another.

And there is also the language of playgrounds… We often give children brightly colored equipment, yet we offer them a world that is intellectually grey. A play space should invite a child’s imagination; it shouldn’t say, “Here, you can only do this.” Design should increase the child’s questions: “What is this?”, “Where does this lead?”, “How do I use this?”, “What happens if I flip it over?” These questions are the first lessons of urban literacy in a child’s mind. Yet we take urban literacy away from the child from the very beginning (See Figure 4).

Perhaps the simplest, yet most effective starting point is this: listening to the child. Learning what play is from children themselves. Letting go of the adult habit of declaring, “This is what play is.” Trying a play street in the neighborhood. Lowering traffic speed during certain hours of the week. Reconfiguring a street according to the child’s body and imagination. Play shouldn’t be confined to the park. Play should spill out into the street. Because the street is the heart of the city. A city without a heart is nothing but an order of concrete.

Sometimes I find myself thinking: when we imagine what is good… maybe what is good is actually something we remember. It existed before. Autumn existed, summer existed, orange existed. Children’s knees were scraped, but their eyes were bright. Now the knees are clean, and the eyes are tired. Somewhere along the way, we did something wrong. Can we still fix it? Maybe. But first, we need to say one sentence honestly: we, with our own hands, narrowed children’s right to the city. And what we narrowed, we will have to widen again. No one will do it in our place.

Like good bread… a good city also takes labor. A good city is a future earned honestly. A city built with children in mind is not only better for children; it is better for everyone. Because traffic slowed down for a child is safer for an older person too. Shade increased for a child is cooler for an adult as well. Greenery multiplied for a child is everyone’s breath. Defending a child’s right to the city is, in the end, defending the right to life itself.

And I don’t want to leave this right to “one day.” Because childhood doesn’t wait. Childhood can’t be postponed. Childhood is lived today. If it is taken from us today, it won’t come back tomorrow.

(All photographs were taken by the author.)

We often see the city “from above.” From maps, plans, screens… And then from within life itself: from behind the steering wheel, from the middle of the sidewalk, from an adult’s eye level. Everything has a name, a measurement, an explanation. But the truth is this: the city is understood through empathy. And a child’s body speaks an entirely different language inside it.

The first time I truly noticed this, I wasn’t preparing a presentation, and I wasn’t writing a thesis. I was walking with my son. My hand was holding his; I’m used to walking fast, he isn’t. I decide quickly, saying “we’ll go this way,” but he sees everything, one by one. While I was complaining about my son’s slowness as I grabbed his arm and pulled him along, his mother warned me. So I started watching him. His eyes catch on the height of a single curb stone. On a surface where the pavement has been torn up, he points at a puddle and says, “Dad, there’s a pool in front of us.” He hides behind the trunk of a tree. He listens carefully to the sound the wind makes in the branches. What is ordinary to me becomes, for him, sometimes a small adventure, sometimes a small fear.

“95 cm” stops being just a number for me here. It becomes the height from which a child looks at the world… around waist level. And when you look from there, the city changes all at once. What we call “narrow” can feel too wide and too exposed to them. What we call a “safe” sidewalk can make them feel as if they are walking on the roadway. What we call a “connector road” can feel like a river that is hard to cross. (See: Urban95)

The way children experience the city is fundamentally different from the way adults do; at the center of this difference lies a strong drive to explore. A child approaches first, touches, tries; they often learn the boundary not from a warning sign, but from lived experience. For this reason, in places where children spend time, safety should not be treated as a technical measure added later, but as a basic quality the space must carry from the very beginning. Because for a child, an unsafe detail a slippery surface, a dark corner, a loose part does not only create physical risk; it also interrupts curiosity and teaches withdrawal. Seen from 95 cm, the city stops being an open field for exploration and turns into a sequence of obstacles that must be crossed carefully. That is why, in child-oriented spaces, safety should not be read as the opposite of freedom; on the contrary, it should be read as a precondition for exploration and for participation in public life.

You come to realize something: a child reads the city not only with “logic,” but also with the senses. Through sound, vibration, light, slipperiness, smell, hardness… For example, when I cross a road, I mostly check whether traffic is flowing. My son sometimes says, “The cars are very angry.” It’s not a technical sentence, but it’s accurate. Because in his body, when speed and noise come together, they feel “angry.” In some places the light glares into his eyes; in others the wind hits like a slap. Especially in winter: the ground hardens, corners turn to ice, pits where water collects and freezes overnight… Things that don’t slow an adult down can cut off a child’s courage.

And there’s something else: we adults usually assume the city is something “finished.” A child doesn’t. For a child, a wall is not a boundary; it is the idea of climbing. A puddle is not a problem; it is an experiment. Curb stones are not a line; they are a balancing game. A child keeps testing the possibilities inside the city. Maybe that’s why, when you walk with a child, something in you feels unsettled. The city, on one hand, is alive, inviting, calling you in; on the other hand, it is strangely hard, constantly saying, “Don’t touch.”

In the end, it always comes back to the same question: For whom do we consider the city “normal”? Whose walking speed is normal? Whose stride length is normal? Whose field of view is normal? In plans, projects, and even in our everyday decisions, we often take our own body as the measure. And then we create a separate corner for children and soothe our conscience: “At least there’s a playground…” But the issue is not only the playground. It’s the sidewalk a child walks along during the day, the corner they turn, the bus stop they wait at, the space in front of the school, the route to the grocery store… That’s where the real stage of life is.

As I write this, one image keeps returning to my mind: we are waiting at a crosswalk. I check the road almost automatically, acting as if to say, “Okay, go.” My son, before anything else, looks for eye contact. He looks at the driver, trying to understand whether the driver has noticed him. For a child, safety is sometimes not in the sign on the pole, but in being seen. In that quiet message of “I noticed you.” It’s that simple, that human.

So are we going to talk about this 95 cm issue as if it were only a slogan? I don’t really have the heart for that. Because out in the field, you see something very clearly: sometimes it’s not the big projects, but the small adjustments that save lives. The gap in a drainage grate, the height of a curb, the sightline at a corner, the position of a sign… These get dismissed as “details,” but in a child’s walk they can become a massive obstacle.

When a designer looks “from below” at what they say, “I drew this”… some things start to feel unnecessarily harsh. Some forms look unnecessarily large. Some solutions, while trying to be “safe,” have turned into something intimidating. The adult mind sometimes loves big gestures: wide openings, hard edges, tall elements… A child, however, wants not a grand spectacle, but consistent small continuities. A sidewalk that keeps the same width, a corner that doesn’t surprise you, lighting that repeats in a predictable rhythm, a surface that isn’t slippery… And that repetition is not boredom, as we often assume. In a child’s language, it means “being able to predict.” And being able to predict means safety.

At this point, an objection usually appears: “If we design everything for children, won’t it feel too tight for adults?” I understand that, because the city is already a place where interests collide. But there is a simple reality: most of the things you improve for a child also benefit the adult. Calmer traffic, crossings that are easier to read, more shade, seating that is easier to reach, less noise… None of these diminish anyone. On the contrary, they make the city a little more livable. When you make room for the most fragile, everyone gets to breathe. It almost feels like a general rule of life.

When you talk with a child, you start to understand what we call “participation” in a different way. Showing a plan to a child and asking, “Do you like it?” is little more than a pointless effort, or a kind of performative gesture. But when you ask, “Where do you run on the way to school?”, “What scares you in the city?”, “When you stand next to this bench, what do you feel like doing?”, suddenly you get very clear answers. A child doesn’t describe space as a “drawing,” but as a “stage.” On that stage, where do they speed up, where do they hesitate, where does it turn into play… That is the real information.

All of this, for me, keeps circling back to a phrase I love in landscape architecture: “reading the site.” In this piece, I’m suggesting we do that reading a little lower, a little slower, and a little more from the heart. When you look from 95 cm, the city suddenly stops being only a child’s issue; it becomes an issue for all of us. Because a city truly grows when it makes room for its smallest user. And by growth, I don’t mean skyscrapers; I mean becoming finer, softer, more attentive… In a way, a city’s maturity shows itself here.

Have you ever noticed how playgrounds in cities are usually lively only in spring or on mild summer days, yet turn into abandoned spaces in winter or during extremely hot summer periods? With the climate crisis and accelerating urbanization, “play” one of our children’s most basic rights keeps getting blocked by weather conditions. So can children’s playgrounds truly be made usable in all four seasons?

In this article, by discussing season-responsive playground design and the idea of child-friendly cities, we will explore how parks can become living spaces 365 days a year.

Seasonality: Not Just a “Maintenance” Issue

The conventional perspective either treats the fact that playgrounds are not used in winter as something natural, or reduces it to a simple maintenance and cleaning issue. Yet studies suggest that climate data (wind, sun, precipitation) should be placed at the center of design when playgrounds are planned.

Based on observations, while park use can be 3–4 times a week in summer, this rate may drop to as little as once a week in winter. However, from the standpoint of urban resilience and children’s rights, the right to play cannot be suspended because of the weather; parks should remain accessible and safe throughout the year.

1. Safe play in scorching summer heat: UV protection and thermal comfort

Although summer means vacation and play for children, extreme heat carries serious risks. The lack of heat-resilient surfaces and adequate shading can make parks dangerous.

• Hot surface risk: Metal, rubber, and asphalt surfaces can reach hazardous temperatures under direct sun (over 60°C for metal, over 77°C for plastic), creating a risk of burns.

• Suggested Solutions:

  • UV-protected play area: Modular shade structures or canopy systems should be added above play equipment, especially slides and swings.

  • Natural shading: Deciduous trees should be used so that the area is shaded in summer while allowing sunlight to pass through in winter.

  • Light-colored materials: To reduce surface temperatures, light-colored ground materials that reflect sunlight should be preferred.

  • Thermal comfort for children: Children regulate body temperature more slowly than adults; therefore, clean drinking water fountains that allow frequent hydration should be integrated into the site.

2. Why do parks stay empty in winter?

In winter, parents often hesitate to take their children outside due to fear of illness. However, observations from cities with harsh continental climates such as Erzurum suggest that the issue is not only the cold, but also unsuitable design decisions.

• Windbreak Planting: By using dense plant barriers or panels that block northerly winds, the “perceived temperature” can be increased and the wind’s chilling effect can be reduced.

• Warm colors: Warm, vivid colors that contrast with winter’s gray-and-white atmosphere can create a psychological sense of warmth and invite children to play.

• Anti-icing measures: To prevent slips and falls, flexible surfaces that are resistant to freezing should be used, and regular snow clearing should be carried out.

• Lighting: With the shortening of days in winter, lighting levels should be increased to reduce growing safety concerns.

3. Spring and autumn: Rain, mud, and slippery surfaces

In transitional seasons, drainage problems are the biggest barrier in playgrounds. Snowmelt or spring rains can turn parks into mud baths.

• Drainage solutions: To prevent puddling, permeable surfaces should be used and subsurface drainage systems should be installed.

• Slip prevention: In autumn, fallen leaves combined with rain can turn surfaces into an ice rink. Textured surface finishes and regular cleaning reduce this risk.

• Mud management: In high-use areas, raised wooden walkways (boardwalks) can be used to limit contact with mud.

4. Climate-responsive landscape design and urban resilience

Four-season usable play space creation is not merely about selecting equipment; it is the art of crafting a microclimate. Urban planners should integrate macroclimate data (the region’s overall climate) with micro-scale data (the park’s wind direction, shaded areas).

Climate-sensitive landscape design; while protecting children’s health, offers a play experience that does not detach them from nature, but instead aligns with nature’s seasonal cycles. This approach not only enhances the quality of the play space, but also preserves the balance between urban climate and the right to play against the risks created by climate change.

Let’s Not Surrender Parks to the Seasons

Children’s playgrounds are an urban resilience issue as important as disaster preparedness. As municipalities, designers, and parents, we should stop seeing parks as spaces meant only for sunny days.

1. spaces that are shaded and cool in summer
2. sheltered from the wind and safe in winter
3. It is possible to create spaces that are mud-free and dry in spring. Let us not forget that play is not a luxury, but a children’s right that applies in every season.

This content was compiled from the book-chapter research titled “Designing Child-Friendly Urban Resilience: Seasonal Strategies for Public Playgrounds“, conducted by Mehmet Emin DAŞ and Prof. Dr. Mehmet Akif IRMAK, focusing on the climatic resilience and seasonal adaptation of children’s playgrounds within the book titled “Architectural Sciences and Sustainable Approaches: Urban Resilience“. For more detailed information on how this can be implemented, please read the original book chapter.