staging ground_the agency of infrastructure

This past winter, a competition was held to envision a playground for a small school in Thailand. the brief requested that tires be a primary construction component. Staging Ground proposed a playful adaptation of "chutes and ladders".

The importance of usable open space has been well documented at various times and at various places throughout the world. For centuries small parks and playgrounds have functioned as vital social networking tools and places of reprieve from the city and home. When networked, these parks have the capability to provide and enhance transferences of the social ethos, strengthening bonds and establishing new ones. These peer-to-peer relationships, while often ignored, are a necessity to communities of any scale and location. Research has shown small open spaces to not only provide the infrastructural benefits, but also health benefits of lowering blood pressure, decreasing fear and anger and contributing to the education of children.

Given these benefits, this project develops a proposal for the Baan Tha Aj in Mae Sot School that is highly adaptable in terms of play and use, while establishing a new productive piece of infrastructure. The focal point of the design hinges around a specific typology of the playground that builds off of Aldo Van Eyck’s work in postwar Amsterdam. Van Eyck used the playground as a community node, recognizing its value, particularly in times of stress. Facilitating cross-generational interactions through multilayered programs allows for a more comprehensive daily use, engendering a social investment and care for this space. In the case of the Baan Tha Aj School these programs focus on active play, formal educational activities, gardening and shaded passive spaces.

The application of surfaces and elements into site, give the program physical form should be inventive and in some ways repetitive. Repeated elements take the base form of a raised tire, built from a stilt-work of bamboo poles. This element is repeated throughout the design and is manifested in 5 forms, varying in size and use. The simple structure may be used as a node of gardening and landscape or as a simple play structure, easily constructed and durable.

The surface is developed to both add interest, permitting a higher degree of creative play, and to create a sense of enclosure from the exterior of the site. Constructed with rammed earth technology, tires are integral to creating a stable and inexpensive retaining wall and elevation change. The displaced soil from the structure’s footing is used as fill to establish the amphitheater styles chutes. Through the overlay of the surfaces and elements a dynamic and adaptive play space is established, fostering spontaneous and creative play activities while allowing for an infusion of landscape and gardens.

Play spaces are not an extra item that can be ignored. As a part of the urban infrastructure, they are as essential as roads, bridges and utilities. As a part of the social fabric they are just as important as schools and hospitals, often providing similar functions.