Co-Design with Children in Organisational Outdoor Play Projects
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This project explores how co-design with children can shape the development of a public outdoor play installation from an early stage, rather than involving children only at the point of testing or evaluation. Developed in Slottsskogen in Gothenburg as part of the Zoo LIFE Pollinators initiative, it asks how play can create a closer relationship between children and pollinators.
The project grew through a research-driven design process in which workshops with seven-year-old children, interviews with designers, stakeholder dialogue, sketching, modelling, and prototyping all informed the final outcome. Instead of treating children’s ideas as direct instructions, the process focused on interpreting recurring patterns in their play, humour, storytelling, and spatial imagination. These qualities were gradually translated into design decisions while being negotiated with the practical realities of site conditions, safety, production, and municipal collaboration.
The final installation, Vildbinas Bo, takes the form of an enlarged hollow tree trunk inspired by wild bee nesting habitats. Inside, children can move through a small play environment where they encounter bee rooms, counting activities, illustrations, and a drawing surface that invites them to leave their own traces behind. Around the structure, large flower sculptures extend the experience into the surrounding space, encouraging children to move like wild bees, collect pollen, and return to the nest.
By following the project from early participation to built result, the work argues for a framed and interpretive approach to co-design in which children’s contributions meaningfully shape the design.