Near the entrance of Pecci Center in Prato has been completed the new permanent playground for children and teenagers: The Soul(s) of the museuma choral work of regeneration led by ECÒL with Luca Boscardin.
The playground is positioned between the two bodies of the Center for Contemporary Artbetween the original architecture of Italo Gamberini – a decomposed aggregation of parallelepiped modules with a square base – and that of Maurice Noi who expanded the center – which takes up the theme of the circularity of the paths with a curvilinear body that tends to embrace the original building .
The project weaves together a colorful geometric carpetwhich he assumes the features of a fantastic animal, with three-dimensional elements that suggest the different parts of the body such as antennas, claws, tail and mouth. However, the abstraction of drawing allows children to develop their creativity freely.
None of the three-dimensional elements neither do drawing on the floor have the characteristics of specific games and for this reason they allow children to develop their creativity, encouraging interaction and free play: they are habitable sculpturesa way to bring young users closer to the museum and art.
Objects playful that make up the design of the installation recall the idea of a park with sculptures.
From the competition of ideas to the project
Result of a 2022 ideas competition (awarded in January 2023), the Soul(s) of the playground of the Pecci museum in Prato it’s a project by the ECÒL architecture studio developed with designer Luca Boscardin and Sociolab experts. The characteristics of the animal they are the result of a series of lworkshops conducted around the theme of intercultural play in collaboration with the city’s primary and secondary school classes in the spring-summer of 2023. A new collaborative dimension sought the synthesis between the proposals of the young participants and the translation of the same into architectural solutions.
From a co-design laboratorywhich the architects brought to life right from the preliminary stages, dedicated to the design of fantastic animalswere finally defined imaginary creatures able to interpret the space needs of the children between 3 and 17 years old who participated in the workshops.
The project was promoted by the Municipality of Prato and developed within the Ciel’in città project.
ECÒL project with Luca Boscardin
Claudia Gori images
