{"id":185,"date":"2009-10-28T23:08:36","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T05:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/handyvandal.com\/?p=185"},"modified":"2010-09-09T22:03:58","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T04:03:58","slug":"keita-takahashi-and-playground-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/2009\/10\/keita-takahashi-and-playground-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Keita Takahashi: playground designer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Game designer Keita Takahashi<\/a>, creator of Katamari Damacy<\/a>, is consulting on the design of a children’s playground in England:
\n\"Katamari\"<\/p>\n

The iconoclastic and much-loved game designer is spending a month in Nottingham where he will consult school children, local communities and the NCC Landscape Architect to discuss and develop ideas for the playground.<\/p>\n

Councillor Dave Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Culture & Customers at Nottingham City Council said, “We’re delighted to have Takahashi-san on board and very much looking forward to working with him on this unique collaboration.”<\/p>\n

After considering several sites NCC has selected Woodthorpe Grange Park for the Takahashi-created playground. The site’s natural rolling hills may add to the design and enable some interesting and playful landscapes. <\/p>\n

Takahasi has often made comparisons between game design and architecture, and certainly there are parallels to be drawn between play areas and games – they’re both constructed environments designed to enclose, direct and facilitate enjoyment. But could he be starting a new trend? What would happen if more designers took his lead?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Via Keith Stuart @ The Guardian<\/a>, who adds:
\n\"Katamari<\/p>\n

I think Id could knock up a cool, if rather dangerous, Quake-themed adventure playground – all multi-levelled enclosures and trampoline jump points. And how about a Super Monkey Ball one, in which kids are bundled into huge hamster balls and allowed to explore at will?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m down with it — Quake that playground! <\/p>\n

(Digression: I remember Half-Life Two, there’s an abandoned playground in City-17 … you can spin the spinning-alphabet toys and the merry-go-round … now that was some fine game design, very poignant scene, childhood memories transported into a desolate future.)<\/p>\n

In other British playground news:<\/p>\n

Council bans parents from play areas<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nScore one for Britain in its contest with the United States to create the stupidest fear-based society. The Watford Borough Council took the lead by banning parents from supervising their own kids in public playgrounds, “because they have not undergone criminal record checks.”<\/p>\n

The only adults allowed to monitor the kids are idiocracy-vetted “play rangers.” The children’s parents must “watch from outside a perimeter fence.” <\/p>\n

– Mark Frauenfelder @ BoingBoing<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game designer Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy, is consulting on the design of a children’s playground in England: The iconoclastic and much-loved game designer is spending a month in Nottingham where he will consult school children, local communities and the NCC Landscape Architect to discuss and develop ideas for the playground. Councillor Dave Trimble, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,40,52,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-katamari-damacy","category-play","category-takahashi-keita","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1387,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/1387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}