Dessiner Grigny
Playground co-created with children
Grigny, France
2022
Invited by the city of Grigny to reactivate an unclear public space, Tom VINCENT proposes a co-creation approach with the neighborhood children. A vast concrete slab, nicknamed the Square du Bateau, is chosen as the intervention site. Its latent potential, central positioning, and vacancy make it an ideal support for a project rooted in daily life.
From the first meetings, the need to involve children at every stage becomes evident. Through drawing workshops and a shared model, they imagine together the colors, shapes, and uses to invent. Lacking budget for heavy transformation, ground painting becomes the main medium: a tool for expression and reappropriation.
The construction site becomes a collective moment. Supervised by the city hall, the children paint their own space themselves, giving birth to a lively and inhabited playground. The project, modest in its means, reveals the full power of participatory design: turning an ordinary place into a scene of sharing, a factory of connection, a work by many hands.
