Design Workshop for Play Environments Co-created with Children

Practice at the Private Park “Wagamama Park” in Omama

Abstract

This study examines a design workshop process for co-creating play environments with children through the “Wagamama Park” project in Midori City, Gunma, Japan. The project involves the adaptive reuse of a vacant property as a private park through collaboration among local residents, children, and a university laboratory. Through four workshops, children’s ideas evolved from embodied discoveries to spatial proposals. By introducing a named participation system and a buddy system, the process enabled the visualization of individual ideas and their transformation through dialogue, demonstrating a dialogical and emergent approach to co-design.