Playrise's easy-build playground lets kids be kids even when fleeing war

UK-based charity Playrise and architecture studio OMMX have designed a modular, flatpack playground, aimed at restoring the right to play for children in refugee camps and disaster zones.

Co-designed with Eritrean, Sudanese and Palestinian child refugees over the last year, the Playrise playground is built from simple wood components that can be put together by anyone and customised with colourful accessories like monkey bars and climbing holds.

The system is designed to address what Playrise sees as a critical gap in support for children living in displacement around the world.

Wide shot of children playing on a wooden playground in a green courtyard of a building — Playrise's playground is modular and designed for refugee camps

"Food, medicine, shelter – these things are very essential, but I know, just from observing my own children, that kids learn everything they learn through play," Playrise co-founder Alexander Meininger told Dezeen.

"[Playgrounds] create a space – especially in the situation they're in, where there's a lot of hardship and trauma – where they can go that is a bit separated from the rest of daily life and allows them to feel like they can just be children."

The charity notes that the right to play is embedded in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but access is often limited in disaster-relief zones and refugee camps, even though these are the places where it is needed most.

Photo of a two-storey wooden playground structure with a plank of colourful climbing holds going up to the top level and two red ropes with coloured footholds coming down like fireman's poles — It is made from simple components that can be put together by anyone

The first refugee camp that will receive Playrise's prototype in Aysaita, Ethiopia, houses 10,000 children under the age of ten and not one single playground, Meininger told Dezeen.

He and architects OMMX, engineers Webb Yates and fabricators Setworks travelled to the camp to explore site constraints, conduct co-design workshops with the children and interview their parents about traditional forms of play and what they miss.

They did the same at two locations in Egypt that will receive future iterations of the Playrise system – a hub for displaced Palestinians in Cairo and a community of Sudanese refugees in Wadi Karkar.

Photo of a two-storey wooden playground structure with children playing in the cubby-like space underneath the platform, with a bright red climbing net strung up between beams beside them — It can be made using locally available wood

The system they conceived is a kit of parts designed to enable play in some of the hottest regions of the world, providing shade as well as structures to spark movement and imagination.

"We deliberately chose timber because the metal playgrounds that have been put in historically in the middle of the desert were, like, burning children," said OMMX co-founder Hikaru Nissanke. "And there was no shade, so it's just open desert, children couldn't touch it."

The Playrise system for the Asaita camp is made of iroko wood, an African hardwood selected for its performance in arid environments, robust nature and responsible sourcing opportunities.

OMMX designed it with as few components as possible for ease of assembly – just one beam and one plank, bored with a line of holes to fix them together with metal connectors or to attach add-on equipment from climbing nets to basketball hoops.

Photo of two kids sitting on a bright red hammock-like net strung up between beams on a wooden playground structure — The kits can be put together in various configurations

Safety was a key consideration, with holes and fixings designed to stop fingers from getting stuck, and Webb Yates engineering a system of secure but removable footings for various types of ground, from desert sands to urban concrete.

The vision is that in the future, NGOs will be able to choose from a "menu" of differently sized kits of parts – small, medium, large – which will each come with instructions for multiple structures that can be made from the components.

The structures can be assembled with standard tools such as a ratchet to tighten the bolts and a shovel to bury the feet, and Playrise envisions that even kids can get involved in designing and building their playgrounds of choice.

Wide shot of the Playrise playground showing a wooden structure with canopies and panels in different block colours pulled down in various sections — The structures are also intended to provide shade

While the system is designed with and for children displaced by conflict, Meininger said it is intended to be appealing for any child, anywhere in the world, including at an everyday nursery or school in peacetime, and can be made with local woods.

Previous designs for displaced children include the Dezeen Award-winning DIY flashlight by Ambessa Play and Pentagram.

The photography is by Lewis Ronald.

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