LIKU - Building through motions

Abstract: LIKU: Building Through Motions project explores the method of designing that is born through children’s performative body movements. It is an attempt to combine child culture design with elements of bodily movements found in the performance art field. This project addresses the lack of movement-based play done by children in indoor environments. The widely-known perception today is that children commonly engage in quiet, sedentary play while staying indoors such as playing with building blocks and drawing, whereas they play more actively in an outdoor environ- ment. (Sandseter, Storli, Sando 2022). In some countries where outdoor play is more restricted be- cause of the lack of space and/or safety reasons, playing indoors becomes the main option for children. The existence of indoor playgrounds allows children to have physical play while being in- doors. However, the play situation presented by these indoor play- grounds is a predetermined play, where play structures are made to accommodate certain play activities. As a result, even though the body movements aspects are fulfilled, children lack the ability to nurture their own play culture. Facing this problem, the project aims to provide affordances for children to do full-body movements play in an indoor context with the use of designed objects, which is framed with the research question: How can indoor objects encourage full-body movements and free play interaction? This project starts by investigating the myriad of possibilities a child’s body can both influence and be influenced by objects with- in an indoor spatial context. It is then connected to the exploration of the design of objects that accommodates such movements and in return, allow children to said movements. A designed object will be the outcome of this project that creates the full-bodied action capacity of children’s play while also pro- moting free play that let children decide how they want to play, giving children the agency to decide what kind of active play they can do with it.