A Long-term Initiative for a New Generation of Playgrounds
Hundreds of public children’s playgrounds are embedded across Hong Kong’s housing estates, neighbourhood parks, street corners, podiums, coastal areas and islands. They vary widely in scale, yet remain among the first public spaces where children meet others, form friendships and build memories of place.
The 2019 policy to renew 170 public children’s playgrounds introduced public participation as part of the transformation process. AaaM initiated Together We Play in response, asking how a new generation of playgrounds could reflect changing play cultures as well as the distinct environments, ways of life and identities of different communities.
Together We Play is conceived as an ongoing initiative. It looks beyond equipment to consider how children inhabit a place, how families accompany them, which informal games already exist, and how everyday memories and local culture can inform public-space design.
Understanding Play through the Play Space Onion
Inspired by psychology’s onion theory, AaaM developed the Play Space Onion as a framework for understanding the layered meanings of a playground. It moves from visible equipment use and play behaviour towards companionship and social interaction, everyday experience of place, childhood memory and collective culture.
This framework expands the conversation beyond a list of facilities. Slides, swings and climbing elements remain relevant, but they are understood alongside chasing, hiding, imagining, making friends, family companionship and local life. This helps uncover both the play patterns valued by users and the social or cultural qualities that may remain unspoken within a site.
The framework also guides different forms of participation. Surveys and site studies provide broad information about use; community photography, stories and observations reveal experiences of place; models and co-creation workshops allow children and families to translate needs into spatial ideas.
Bringing Participation into the Design Process
Together We Play positions children as co-authors of public space. Through drawings, photographs, models, stories and self-invented games, children express how they understand speed, height, distance, concealment, sensory stimulation, adventure and encounter. Parents, residents, schools, NGOs and community organisations add perspectives on care, daily use, local memory and management.
Engagement methods are adapted to the conditions of each site and community. They include on-site stations, surveys, play-space audits, knowledge-sharing sessions, community photography, online and physical activities, family workshops, model co-creation, public discussion and priority validation. During the pandemic, hybrid and self-guided formats helped maintain accessibility and safe participation.
To date, the wider research and co-creation process has involved more than 800 children and parents and over 30 schools and organisations. Their contributions have informed district themes, site directions and priorities, allowing public experience to become part of the project’s design knowledge.
Translating Community Knowledge into Built Space
AaaM interprets open, diverse and sometimes conflicting community input into spatial directions that can be designed and constructed. Workshop findings are developed alongside site constraints, safety standards, scale, structure, cost, management and maintenance requirements.
Participation therefore continues through the full design and delivery process: site research and engagement lead into concept and schematic design, public and authority consultation, detailed design, tender drawings and specifications, supplier and contractor coordination, construction support and handover. The Tong Mei Road Children’s Playground workflow illustrates this continuity from engagement and design to technical delivery and built outcome.
This process keeps children’s and communities’ ideas present after the workshops end. Through professional interpretation and technical development, they become embedded in routes, spatial relationships, themes, colours, materials and atmosphere.
Growing from Current Practice into Future Communities
To date, Together We Play has carried out district-wide studies in Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin, Kwun Tong, Tsuen Wan, Kwai Tsing and the Islands, covering a total of 188 public play spaces. These studies examined patterns of use, play needs, environmental qualities and priorities for future transformation.
AaaM has also contributed through the initiative to the design and delivery of 15 public children’s playgrounds across urban districts, housing estates, coastal areas and islands. Each responds to a different combination of community life, local culture, natural setting and children’s imagination. These 15 sites represent the initiative’s body of practice to date and establish a method that can continue to grow.
As more public playgrounds enter processes of renewal and reconsideration, Together We Play will continue to connect child participation, community research and spatial design across new places. Each site brings a different question and another opportunity for a playground to carry friendship, memory, culture and belonging.
