FUTURE OF PUBLIC SPACES FOR CHILDREN Milena Krkljes, MSc Assistant, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Faculty

of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad INTRODUCTION Public spaces have become one of the most important factors in creating the image of city, places where we can observe everyday life. They have direct influence on urban life and therefore on urban quality. The phrase public space stands for inbuilt places in the city, accessible to all different social groups of citizens. It is a place of meetings, events, moving and exchanging and many other events of social life. We value these spaces through its morphology, architectural and urban structure, social, psychological and ambient characteristics. Public space in today's city is "a stage in the arena of urban life: the place of anarchy, conflicts and codex it has as its concrete result" (Bobic 2000, p. 15). Public spaces are especially important as places where children meet, gather and play. Urban growth and fast urban transformation in the city have as a result changes in relations between built and inbuilt spaces, public/semi-public and private spaces. Careful designing process is usually missing and public spaces for children, which are necessary for their proper psychophysical development, are neglected. As the population, which cannot independently materialize its needs and wishes, children are usually left to spend their time in badly designed and very often spaces in extremely bad condition. Complex and artificial environment where children grow up, offers them fewer opportunities to find about the world around them, with their own senses and "cramped quarters for moving and meeting with other children, have as a result specific isolation from real life, intensified by an effect of hypnovision and other mediums of artificial information. In this way children are deprived of their own possibilities for their own authentic experience which is important in their development" (Kamenov, 1989, p. 8). What can we do to make public spaces more appropriate to childrens needs? What could be our contribution in designing playgrounds in rapid urban changes of today cities? Do we create proper places for children or should we make an effort to understand their needs to explore different public spaces with the entire natural outdoors with vegetation, animals, water and sand? MAJOR ASPECTS OF PUBLIC SPACES FOR CHILDREN DEVELOPMENT Children are one of the most frequent users of public spaces. Doing research of public spaces in the city, we can conclude that there are number of social and psychophysical aspects and their influences on children's life. Children play is one of the most important activities during their growing up and development. Certain fields of psychology and pedagogy, engaged in different aspects of children play, think of it as a basic type of children activity, as it reflects the whole neurophysical state of a child, their biological and physical needs (Maletic, 1970). Playing different games, they experience different emotional reactions; they explore and understand their environment, which results in creating special relations with it. Up until XIX century, not much attention was paid to spaces for children's staying and playing. The emancipation of woman allowed the problem of childcare to be considered. In 1920s, scientists defined the term children development and play, and started to think about children playgrounds. During the 1970s, a group of scientists supported the idea of the necessity for the standardisation of public spaces, hygiene and establishing authority over children. The other group, however, believed that children should be given free imagination while playing and the variety of spaces in order to establish their self-discipline. In contemporary tendencies, architects who have an important role in creating spaces for children first have to consider educational elements in creating spaces for children with many different activities, to stimulate children's imagination and their exploring spirit (Heintz, 2004).

According to Karl Gross, childrens play, which originates from their natural needs and impulses, has biological significance: it prepares us for life; creativity sharpens intelligence and psychologically speaking gives pleasure. These plays are special creative activities, which result in a communication between a child and their surroundings. While playing games, children develop their psychophysical characteristics of personality and exercise socialisation (Dobson, 2005). Apart from physical, cognitive, creative and emotional aspects, play also includes social one. The assumptions of some scientists that family and school as institutions are the only adequate surroundings for children, can allow us to reach wrong conclusions and act wrongly while we design public spaces for children. This kind of thinking has negative consequences. It results from neglecting the social importance of spending time in different surroundings as well as exaggerating the importance of the family and school. As a result, there is inferiority and confusion of children and youth in interaction with people of different age and social groups (Moore, 1999). Children better develop social behaviour and, at the same time, overcome the sense of loneliness, which is often proved to be fatal in their psycho-physical development, by spending time in playgrounds and sport grounds than at home. The significance of these spaces reflects in the fact that children and youth "usually act as a link between socially different groups. Children ignore differences between them and make friendships with children from social groups their parents don't interact with." (Vujovic, 1990, p. 49). Continuous and various movements in open space, richness in physical and emotional reactions are influences of great importance in children development. It is believed that more often then not social and environmental factors as well as intrapersonal ones influence their behaviour. Research has proved that dissatisfied needs of children and youth, could result in different types of antisocial behaviour, neuro-pathological conditions, even in certain neuropsychiatry illnesses (Maletic, 1970). Childrens environment and their tempo of life, especially in cities, require our special attention while studying and creating public spaces for them, in order to reduce bad influences, to encourage their proper psychophysical development and to allow children to express themselves as individuals in their communities.

Picture 1. Children playgrounds with different elements for play offer, but also impose certain kinds of physical games and activities. BASIC FEATURES FOR DESIGNING PUBLIC SPACES FOR CHILDREN For the sake of children, it is important to think about some basic space and functional features, which we should consider as necessary during the designing process of public places. That process cannot include only decisions about equipment, but many different analyses of current situation at the site we create. Many needs for proper psychophysical development of this particular group of population happen in these places. Children used to have much more places for free play, to explore and interact with the world around. Nowadays, children spend more time inside in front of television and computer. That comes as a result of urban growth, without thinking about human needs for interaction with open spaces. We should try to make spaces with many different play opportunities, which children can imagine.

For designing public spaces for children it is necessary to establish the typology, based on different age groups (according to children's psychosocial needs) and functional characteristics of spaces. This can help as to understand what are needs and imaginations of different age groups and how can we create public spaces where children of all ages can find proper and interesting equipment and environment for play and entertainment. We can define division of analysed spaces according to age groups of children and youth: Public spaces for children aged 1 to 3, accompanied by adults, Public spaces for children aged 3 to 7, Public spaces for children aged 7 to 14, Public spaces for children aged 14 to 19.

Each of the previously defined spaces has specific characteristics (contents and safety aspects) for stay and play of certain age groups of children and their proper psychophysical development. Children gather in public spaces, which have various, attractive and interesting elements for play. As a result, these are the different types of spaces for play: Public spaces - children playgrounds with different elements for play, usually located near children's institutions and blocks of flats. Elements on playgrounds offer, but also impose certain kinds of physical games and activities. Green public spaces in open or semi open urban blocks enable children to imagine and create games by their own rules. Sports fields - places for recreation and various sport activities of children, usually located near schools and in urban clusters. Public spaces in kindergartens and schoolyards, with various places for play and sport activities.

Picture 2. Green public spaces enable children to imagine and create different games. Some of the most important features of public spaces where children spend time and have different activities taking into consideration and accepting children's needs from the standpoint of medicine, psychology, pedagogy and sociology are: Location in the direct vicinity of buildings children live in and spend time, Accessibility to all potential users, especially for disabled children, using universal design principals without accessibility features being obvious, Safety of children in playgrounds, Spacious of playgrounds, in order to allow free and various activities, High quality of public space, in the sense of the natural light, wind protection, adequate vegetation, Hygienic conditions, The presence of water, sanitary facilities and some storage spaces, The presence of animals, Appropriate equipment for play, in the sense of design, used materials, dimensions and locations, Places and features to sit on, Different levels and nook and crannies, places that offer privacy Long life and sustainable development of public spaces, with possibilities for flexible changes in modern tendencies and needs of children.

The main problem we can recognise during the analyses of public spaces for children in the countries, which are under economy transition, with expressive urban growth and fast urban transformation, is a shortage of inbuilt spaces designed with care and proper for children. The analysis of public spaces has confirmed hypothesis that there is a connection between certain typologies of buildings and urban clusters, and types of playgrounds for children. Most of existing public spaces for children are neglected; some of these are run-down or even ruined with certain elements such as hoops and goal constructions dangerous for play. Insufficiently and unclearly defined standards for designing and constructing is one of the reasons why public spaces for children play and other activities are being neglected or do not even exist. The other reason is insufficiency of spaces which children find exciting for playing and exploring. Therefore, they usually devastate playgrounds or destroy vegetation. On the other side, a shortage of public spaces especially designed for children, results with their initiative to find and adopt some urban spaces for themselves, usually on very inappropriate and even dangerous locations and ways.

Picture 3. Public spaces for sport activities are always popular by children. However, to make even better public spaces for children in the future, we must take in consideration the way children see and experience world around them. From childrens perspective, space is a serious of different structural elements whose relations forms an entity, but also as a sequence of experiences and different events. Children recognize space as a series of different activities connected with a particular place, but only after certain experiences can create their own image of that space. According to C. N. Schulz, space can be defined using five space concepts: pragmatic space of physical activities, perceptual space of direct orientation, existent space that represents the stable image of people's environment, cognitive space of physical world and abstract space of pure logical relations (Norberg Schulz, 1999). This differentiation can be used to define what public spaces for children should be like in the future, as their point of support throughout life. The selection of elements used in public spaces and children playgrounds is of great importance. A basic characteristic of all elements in use should have challenging role in children's play. All used elements must have the highest quality and design standards. Materials for all used elements must be chosen according to different climate conditions, but also we should try to show a respect for the use of certain materials, which are traditional for location where they will be used. Use of standard products must not make playground boring for children, as there is a risk of their search for some more attractive and unusual spaces for play, which are usually also dangerous for their stay. However, for creating quality public spaces for children is not enough to put some of the prefabricated elements for play. We must make an effort to create environment with everyday challenges suitable for their different levels of development, age and gender. Essential role of architects and urban planners is to create public spaces, where children can experience themselves and perform different activities. As country environment is considered to be most acceptable model of surroundings that satisfies children's needs, we must try to create such public spaces for all children in the cities that support their imagination and offer them freedom to play and create their own games.

CONCLUSION Upon analyzing many of the public spaces for children, we can conclude that the unified need of children for gathering and play, sports and other leisure activities does exist in diversified architecture and urban projects of the city. Open spaces in kindergartens, schools, playgrounds and other public spaces fewer and fewer attractive places for gathering and spending free time. Moreover, there is always an obvious shortage of spaces for play and other leisure activities in many of the newly built urban clusters, which have been built without proper planning and thus neglected providing free space around them. It seems that architects and urban planners do not pay much attention on childrens needs and that some of us think that it is enough to create some spacious green spaces with no other contests. Unfortunately, such public spaces are not interesting enough for children and thus they lose their importance as places for socialization of the youngest residents. We accepted the facts that children need freedom to create their own games, but at the same time, that we should offer them attractive and carefully designed public spaces, which are inspiring for them and adequate for all different ages. We must be aware of that it is environment where children spend most time in, and it must be designed according to the highest predefined standards. On the other hand, lack of open spaces in some urban areas results in difficulties when constructing sports fields there. Furthermore, the existing playgrounds for children are often poorly looked after or even ruined which makes them less attractive for everyday play. Some of them are absolutely not the right and appropriate places for children to play. Therefore, all competent institutions should have their own role in different actions for preservation and revitalisation of different public spaces for children in the city. While considering possible ways of revitalization of children spaces for play we should bear in mind that the perception and needs of children and youth considerably differ from those of adults. Aware of this fact, we must try to apply our own experience when drawing up proposals for playgrounds, which would be acceptable to younger generations. Spaces for children and youth "should not be something definite and final, but in continuous process of transformation and places of open possibilities" (Mlinar, 1979, p. 61). Children use senses (of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch) to perceive space, psycho-mobility (climbing, running, jumping) which enables children's development and coordination of their own body, symbols which are in a domain of creativity and enable children to perceive world through imitation before they are able to demonstrate their own ideas and interrelations as a result of direct contact with other children and enable comprehension of socialisation and collective life (Heintz, 2004). Public space model suitable for children should encourage them to explore and discover new possibilities of their own surroundings.

Picture 4. Different public spaces used as children playgrounds. One of the most important moments of growing up and becoming mature of any human being is the sense of belonging to a certain space, and discovery and exploration of self-expression and individualism. Our duty as architects is to design and provide spaces for children, which will be accepted as the environment where they will grow up and be able to express their individualism. Some experiences and examples from developed European countries can teach us about the necessity for defining a national strategy for children spaces. The needs of children from various social and age groups should also be seriously considered. Therefore, local experts and residents

should have an important role in this process. The distribution of public spaces in the city, their proportions and dimensions, programs and contents, should be designed to create harmony between spaces and their users, making the whole process of socialization more successful and intensive. The Article 31 from The Convention on the Rights of the Child says that States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. Following this declaration, we have an obligation to all children in the world, to pay attention on their needs and make an effort to create best possible places for their future and future of our cities. REFERENCES

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