​A New Way of Play: The Forms and Functions of Participatory Design and Critical Pedagogies by Alexandre Beaudouin-Mackay & Sarah Wagner

Graduates Alexandre Beaudouin-Mackay & Sarah Wagner take architectural pedagogy in a direction driven by play. According to the duo, "by understanding play as a powerful methodology, architects can engage others in creative processes with the ambition of implementing new, meaningful, and imaginative design strategies. Play is not aimless but productive..."

In their thesis project A New Way of Play: The Forms and Functions of Participatory Design and Critical Pedagogies, Beaudouin-Mackay and Wagner they push for architecture to reimagine play. As recent graduates from MIT's School of Architecture, they created a set of play spaces for children in order to understand how different forms of architectural authorship could be challenged. 

Archinect's Spotlight on 2020 Thesis Projects: 2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for architecture graduates. Students were displaced as schools shut down, academic communities had to adapt to a new virtual format, end-of-year celebrations were canceled or changed dramatically, and now these students are graduating into an extremely challenging employment market. To support the 2020 class we're launching a summer series of features highlighting the work of thesis students during this unique time of remote learning amid COVID-19. Be sure to follow our 2020 thesis tag to stay up to date as we release new project highlights.

By understanding play as a powerful methodology, architects can engage others in creative processes with the ambition of implementing new, meaningful, and imaginative design strategies. Play is not aimless but productive; it is the way in which we learn to exist in the world. Play changes the way we see our environment, the way we understand ourselves.

Please briefly describe your thesis/final project and your inspiration.

The playful distancing of academic work allows for freedom and innovation, yet architects have not fully explored the expansive opportunities inherent in a more political understanding of play. We conducted this exploration as both means for expanding and growing our own capacity for creativity and as a critique of our own architectural education, which has necessarily been focused on the delivery of defined assets. We approach play as a means of developing our own design philosophy. By understanding play as a powerful methodology, architects can engage others in creative processes with the ambition of implementing new, meaningful, and imaginative design strategies. Play is not aimless but productive; it is the way in which we learn to exist in the world. Play changes the way we see our environment, the way we understand ourselves. It creates collaborations and moments of solitude; it is dynamic; it is static.

Like the imaginaries we engage, the design of play has always been intrinsically tied to the politics of its era. Today, “play,” as we know it, is controlled by an industry obsessed with risk aversion. Play spaces are standardized and generic, not open but relegated to risk-free, fenced off areas. Similarly, our design processes are often isolated, not attentive to the potentials of external communities to open up new possibilities. In the midst of a global call for a new and equitable era, architects can return again to play, not just as a subject but as a method—as a way of working and a form of design research. In a world of increasing tensions and isolationism, architectural work needs to find new ways to be immersed in the world around it. Architects must learn to play with others.

This thesis states that for architecture to reimagine play, it must in-turn, learn from play to re-imagine the process and products of design. We tested new design methodologies through a set of three exercises in play done in collaboration with willing and excited 9-12 year-olds at the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the course of ten different hour-long sessions with the children, we have been challenging different forms of architectural authorship. Each exercise gives the children a specific type of agency. 

We defined five general types of authorship to guide our exercises. These explore different relationships between the self, the body, the collective, and the environment. Each exercise involved the children at different stages of the design process, giving them a specific aspect to control. We designed and guided each session, welcoming the dissonances that push both the students and ourselves away from the ordinary. The emerging ideas were then transformed in order to build full-scale prototypes. The collection of exercises iterates on different forms of play and authorship valuing the embodied, experiential knowledge of the children. Through this project we take play seriously – imagined through an active participatory design process engaging children, one that encourages improvisation, one that inspires new interactions, one that cultivates a culture of curiosity.

Our thesis work relied heavily on group participatory design sessions, using modeling supplies and prototypes guide the activities. An online-version of this method would have required us to completely re-imagine this...

How did your project change as studios transitioned to remote learning?

Fortunately we were able to submit our thesis in January before the pandemic spread to the US. However, we have thought about how we might have adapted our process to an online format, not only for the current extreme global situation, but also for making our work more applicable in situations where in-person participation is difficult, costly, or otherwise impossible. Our thesis work relied heavily on group participatory design sessions, using modeling supplies, and prototypes guide the activities. An online-version of this method would have required us to completely re-imagine this interaction and to build a digital platform to investigate virtual play. Actually, when we first met with our co-designers at the Margaret Fuller House, they wanted to design a video game with us. The concepts of authorship in play we were exploring, from communication to rule writing, could all apply in video game environments, but our own skills seemed better suited to physical prototyping. 

Any tips for students working through their final projects?

We both had so much fun working on this project. Perhaps it was because we chose “play” as a subject of study, perhaps it was spending much of our time fabricating, perhaps it was not worrying too much about how this work might inform “the rest of our careers.” More than anything, though, when we brought new prototypes to the kids we spent an hour a week with, when we not only shared with them but when they opened up to us, the community we became a part of made the work feel worthwhile each and every day. Creating a thesis that was not just for ourselves enlivened the late nights.

Beyond the architectural and the entrepreneurial we see so many other opportunities for jobs outside of architecture that could be integral in shaping a young architect’s career, like our work with after-school activities at the Margaret Fuller House was an avenue for design exploration.

As a recent graduate, how do you feel about the architecture industry right now and job prospects?

An architectural Masters degree equips us with a wide range of skills that reach industries beyond architecture. This might be an opportunity for graduating students to explore alternative realms of design. Since our thesis we have taken radically different paths. Sarah is now working at an architectural office and is planning to pursue licensure. Alex, struggling with job prospects, has taken this opportunity to start his own furniture design and fabrication business. Beyond the architectural and the entrepreneurial we see so many other opportunities for jobs outside of architecture that could be integral in shaping a young architect’s career, like our work with after-school activities at the Margaret Fuller House was an avenue for design exploration. Reaching out beyond the discipline during this difficult time can make your post-COVID return to architecture as an even stronger designer.