During his thesis, the American architect Ryan Swanson he began to wonder how to activate unused public spaces. That is how she decided to install a giant beach ball in an abandoned place.
“After a while a family began to play with it, until it rolled and landed at the feet of a homeless person who was passing by,” Ryan tells when remembering that moment. “One of the children in the family asked him to throw the ball and then he went back to the stranger; laughing, the family and this person ended up playing for 45 minutes. It was at that moment that we began to witness first-hand the power of the game to break down social barriers”, he says.
After that and other interventions, Swanson became interested in the idea of creating open play opportunities as a permanent setting for urban areas, not necessarily in established plazas, but in places rarely used: empty spaces, zebra crossings, benches. parks, facades, sidewalks and whereabouts.
Thus, shortly after graduating in 2014 and after quitting his job at an architecture office, he decided to found The Urban Conga (@theurbanconga). Since then, the studio has been focused on the design and construction of Playces, as they call these spaces, which can become “creative, inclusive and stimulating outlets”, as well as beneficial to the community.
The inspiration for The Urban Conga comes from recognizing and seeing in situ the benefits of playful stimuli. “As human beings, the game is our natural engine to discover, explore and empathize with others. It is universal and can be applied as a powerful tool to begin to overcome differences and end inequalities in our communities,” they say.
For them it is important that the term game is no longer absent in the debate on public policies, urban development and the design of public spaces. “Through our work we push to change that narrative and begin to generate open gaming opportunities for all demographic groups within everyday spaces,” they explain.
The human factor is very important for The Urban Conga, personal relationships have a significant impact on its inspiration. “Through this work and playing with people from all over the world, we have established many personal relationships. Developing these relationships is one of the most inspiring parts of our work,” they say. Thus, the process of each of his projects has been special; they mainly enjoy the conversations and the links they generate with the communities.
The process to develop these projects considers a variety of playful methodologies and is marked by collaboration with the communities. “Our studio works as a collaborative tool for the community and stakeholders to create the work that they feel represents them and their community,” they explain.
During the process it is essential that people can capture their individual identity, in order to create something that people can make their own. They also seek to generate a connection with what is created; not that it is seen as something foreign, unknown and introduced into their spaces without any consideration.
One of the biggest challenges for this study has been to put an end to the “erroneous idea that gambling is only for children,” they say. These open games are created with the idea of being used by people of all ages.
New projects
For the spring-summer of this 2023, in the United States, they plan to install two projects: one in Albany and the other in Baltimore. “For both projects we have spent a year learning, playing and listening to the needs of the communities,” they say.
These will be added to the more than 20 projects already executeds, such as the pARC installation in North Carolina, winner of the 2022 Brooklyn Design Award and recently nominated for the 2023 ArchDaily Awards; or Oscillation, a project that toured different places in the United States, Canada, even reaching Scotland and that was the winner of the NYCxDesign Honoree and ArtPrize Featured Project.
From The Urban Conga they say that they will continue to research and develop new ways of implementing open play in the most everyday spaces to increase playces, always with the motivation to continue promoting social interaction and creating more “playable” cities.
“At a time when the world is increasingly polarized and isolated, we hope to continue showing the power of the game to unite people” they conclude.
