Kids Helped Design Splash Park for Patterson Houses

When the Patterson Houses NeighborhoodStat (NStat) team decided to design a splash park for nearby residents in the Bronx, they didn’t look for an architectural design firm to lead the conversation. Instead, they turned to neighborhood kids for their ideas.

After a series of workshops, kids 5 years of age and older came up with splash park solutions for their development, presenting them on vision boards. Based on a series of prototyping events, the implementation team assessed what kids wanted to play with and developed a proposal that included a ground mural at the existing splash pad, water towers, a misting wall at the basketball court, and portable water games.

The project is a result of collaboration among NStat residents, the Center for Court Innovation’s Neighborhood Safety Initiatives, the Office of Neighborhood Safety, designers at Interboro Partners, and NYCHA. It is funded by the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety and aims to improve public safety by investing in residents, transforming public spaces, and influencing policy.

Isabel Saffon, Associate Director of Neighborhood Equity Design at the Center for Court Innovation, highlighted that residents’ experiences guided the design process: “The Patterson Houses NStat team’s used a co-design process to re-imagining the playground – we design with and for people, using a series of participatory design methods where community members and trained architects equally contribute to the design process. Residents are the main drivers of the solutions they want to see in the space, and architects support the process by defining creative solutions that meet residents’ desires. As a result of this process, the creative co-design solutions tend to be more culturally aware.”

The splash park was temporarily activated in July to test the design and offer water splash fun for the neighborhood kids. “It’s good to have a small tactile intervention for kids to play and experiment, and for us to check kids’ reaction, see the functionality of elements, test it out, and understand if we are going in the right direction,” said Vaidehi Mody, an urban designer in NYCHA’s Capital Projects Design Department

“This was an activation of the splash pad area meant to gather further feedback from the community by testing different water elements that we are seeking to bring to the park,” said Benny Calderon, Program Manager at the Center for Court Innovation.

On August 15, after more than six months of repair work, the water connection in the spray shower area was restored by NYCHA’s operations team. The kids of Patterson Houses will be able to enjoy the fruits of their imagination for many hot summer days to come.

Photo courtesy: the Center for Court Innovation