Unwrapping the Cotton Wool Kid: An Architecture for the 21st Century Child

Abstract

We live in an era of proliferating risk averse and anxious adult behaviours that impacts the freedom and permeability of activity spaces for children. The power of adults and their obsessive concern for security and safety is resulting in a generation of limited, routinized and over protected ‘cotton- wool wrapped’ children. Concern for the ‘cotton – wool’ generation and their restricted independence and increasingly limited opportunities for ludic activity underpins the motivation for this thesis. The focus of the research being an exploration of risk, the main motivational force of play among children. The investigation aims to empower children and enable them to have an autonomy over their environment. To test this, a group of primary school aged children participated in a series of creative workshops to express their perception of risk and challenge in their everyday spaces. Students illustrated risks they found fun and frightening in their home, neighbourhood and their own imaginary worlds.The plethora of qualitative information from the workshops displayed ways in which the children could seek or expose themselves to challenging situations. As a result, this data informed a tangible testing ground to facilitate risky play. The designed installation, How to Unwrap Your Cotton Wool Kid is a series of challenging activities that inform the spatial qualities that challenge children. The proposed design is in Auckland’s western suburb of Titirangi, positioned upon a track that runs through Kawaka Reserve. Each intervention along the track aims to facilitate risky play, whilst creating a route to connect the local primary school to other parts of the neighbourhood. The three sites enable each child to master challenging activities motivated by a positive and exhilarating experience.