BREAKING THE GROUND OF PLAY : A STUDY OF THE PLAYGROUND IN SINGAPORE
CHEN XIAOJUN, GRACE
CHEN XIAOJUN, GRACE
Citations
Altmetric:
Alternative Title
Abstract
The playground represented within publications on Singapore’s public housing environment, primarily
by the Housing and Development Board, projects an image of play that is seemingly synonymous with the experience of community and quality of life. This image of play veils the intentions and assumptions
in the construct of the playground and reinforces its prevalence and continuing production. Examining
the grounds of play on which the idea of the playground is formed through specific histories in which
ideas of play evolved and were appropriated in urban planning to assume instrumental function in the form of the playground makes obvious the contradictions in its construct. Further, the analysis of the agencies and processes, through which the import of the playground to Singapore is normalised to image community and life, reveal that although the initial intentions that influence the proliferation of
the playground is no longer served by its persistence, the assumptions entrenched continue to have effect on the planning of urban space within the public housing estates today. The examination of the
playground as a point of contradiction between functional planning and play expands on the reading of
urban space within the public housing estates of Singapore and probes at the boundaries of current frameworks within which public space is perceived and planned.
Keywords
Architecture, Erik Gerard L'Heureux
Source Title
Publisher
Series/Report No.
Collections
Rights
Date
2009-10-14T08:12:30Z
DOI
Type
Dissertation