Magic Circle

Project Details

Project Description

Magic Circle is a playground for Baan Wang Ree school located in Sa Kaeo, in rural South-East of Thailand.
It was organized as a workshop curated by Paisalwattana Gardolinski Architects Co., Ltd. (PAGAA) and co-mentored with Bangkok Tokyo Architecture and PHTAA Living Design.
Baan Wang Ree perilous financial situation, which regrettably is not uncommon among provincial schools in Thailand highlighted the need for practical, sustainable and low budget proposal which preferably could be duplicated elsewhere without necessity for highly skilled workers or sophisticated tools. The playground aim is to become part of school curriculum by supporting not only physical but also mental and cognitive development of children.

Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposed human society, and animal have not waited for man to teach them their playing.
(Huizinga, 1938, p. 1)

Play is a natural, innate and unconstrained instinct. It contributes to physical, social, emotional and cognitive development of children. Equally important: it is fun.
By engaging in games children develop their imagination, dexterity, learn how to cooperate and organize themselves participating in their first social encounters. Play has a role in brain development by allowing children to assume different roles, or mimic adults, what lets them conquer their fears, enhance confidence and develop new competencies.
Unsupervised play can have additional personality shaping benefits for kids of developing sharing, negotiation, self-advocacy skills as well as ability to resolve conflicts.
Unfortunately, for some, play is a privilege, therefore providing a quality play environment for those under difficult circumstances is of particular importance.
Such is the case of Baan Wang Ree School in the East of Thailand. It is supported by insufficient government funds and run by 6 teachers who take care of 2 kindergarten and 6 primary school classes. Deficient amount of teachers means that their role is at times overtaken by donated, old tv-sets on which unsupervised children watch educational programs.
Pupils attending range in age from 3 to 12 years old. Local community is actively involved in running and supporting the school with some buildings being financed and build entirely by villagers. In order to supplement its meager resources the school operates a large garden where from fruits, vegetables and mushrooms are either sold on local market or turned into children meals. There are also chickens, ducks and fishes.
Children, teachers and locals together and in turns take care of the garden rendering the school a sustainable, self-sustained eco system in which the Magic Circle playground aims to plug in by following simple design solutions, and applying only local, most affordable or free materials.
At the same time, in order to create an optimal play environment that would support children development in every facet, workshop focus was on design of activities instead of on defined structures which than in turn allowed for margin of error and imprecision inevitable in a construction site involving pupils and preferable given that the subsequent maintenance of the playground falls partly and intentionally under the responsibilities of revolving group of teachers and children themselves.
To maximize possible activities James Gibson “affordances theory” has been selected as design guiding principle.

The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or for ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary; but the noun affordances is not. I have made it up (Gibson, 1979, p. 27); italics in original

For example, a table affords a possibility of sitting at, sitting on, eating at, climbing on etc. For humans that is, for animals depending on their species it opens another field of opportunities: for a cat to jump on, for an elephant to step on. It means that, affordances depend on physical and intellectual capabilities of an object and become specific to every niche of life in ecological sense.
As a result Magic Circle produced a series of nondescript and non indicative structures which can be used as the children please.
The bamboo slider can be slid from individually or in group, climbed upon appearing as a small hill when seen from the back, used as a hiding/crawling space, run around or used as observation spot among other activities. The “360 degree” seesaw expands on range of uses offered by its “ancestor” by allowing multiple users who can not only swing on it, but rotate it around its middle axis, arrange it in group with other seesaws or play various games on its surface. Each play equipment emphasized the social aspect of games by allowing multiple simultaneous users. Checkered ground finish created by patches of grass integrates all installations together providing stimulating backdrop.
As a result the whole playground becomes a “Magic Circle” of sorts, defined by Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz as:

In a very basic sense, the magic circle of a game is where the game takes place. To play a game means entering into a magic circle, or perhaps creating one as a game begins.
(Salen & Zimmerman, 2003, p. 95)

List of materials used contains only 6 “globally” available in Thailand items: soil, bamboo, rice bags, rope, concrete and chicken wire. All either highly affordable or free.
The workshop accompanying manual provides simple instructions on how to duplicate designed objects as well as documents the entire design and construction process. Its aim is also, as was decision of turning the project into a workshop and involving many volunteers, to raise extra awareness to the situation of Baan Wang Ree school, which is representative of many similar institutions around Thailand.