Sonic Playgrounds - Exploring Principles and tools for Outdoor Sonic Interaction

Abstract

Physical contexts, artifacts and materials have a big influence on the way children are enabled and encouraged in their play activities, especially in playgrounds. Designers and educators focus on formal and visual qualities of the playground, neglecting the potential of sound. Although sonic activities are common everyday phenomena in playgrounds and take an important role in children’s development, there is a lack of knowledge on ways in which sound can be brought playgrounds. With the interdisciplinary project Sonic Playgrounds, we address this problem by developing methods, tools and guidelines which emphasize the role of sonic interactions on playgrounds. In this paper, we present two Sonic Playground studies: a workshop with interaction design students and a field study on a semi-public playground.