18 APRIL / time tbc

Free but booking essential. Places are limited

Book your place here

_{“When it comes to play, children and young people are the experts; they know where and how they like to play, so seeking and acting on their views is essential if we are to create playful spaces which meet their needs.” (Centre for Young Lives, 2025) *}


Creative Playscapes  - is a collaborative research project developed by The Hundred Club, TACO!, and the University of Greenwich.

We are askig  - how can creative work that centres children and families as artistic producers, filmmakers, designers and authors help to shape the future of our built environment and make cities playful, happy, healthy places to grow and live?

Over the past 2 years TACO!, The Hundred Club and University of Greenwich have explored this question through workshops, walks, mapping, filmmaking, and sound recording in Thamesmead, South East London, using creative practice as both a method of inquiry and a way of making lived experience visible to others. In this way, we’ve also explored plans and ideas, shared our worries and frustrations, and dreamt of possible futures.

We invite you to join children, architects, families, urban planners, carers, builders, community organisers, artists, playworkers, councillors, educators, filmmakers, doctors and designers in sharing your experiences, insights, thinking and approaches.

Our aim is to explore the complexity of creative play work and to develop shared principles and practices for how we can centre children as authors of the built environment and our public spaces. 



We want to understand the challenges and the potential for dreaming and building our cities differently.

• What does a playful city look like to you?

• What forms of knowledge do children have and what forms do adults have? 

• How do we centre the expertise of children within the practical frameworks and processes of building projects that are designed by adults?

• What does meaningful collaboration, co-design and shared authorship with children really look like?

• How can children and creative play make public policy and shape change?

• Which creative approaches and methods of play work best in good design?

• What practical, ethical, and institutional barriers limit collaboration with children and families, and how might they be addressed?

• How can we create spaces that allow children to be experts and decision makers in the policy and spatial design process?

• What are the opportunities for children and families to shape and co-author the making of their homes and built environment?

Join us for presentations and a roundtable discussion on the 18th April 2026 - where we can reflect and explore these ideas together to make plans for a shared playful future.

As part of our research, we are also gathering people's thoughts through film, sound, image and words, throughout February and March 2026

If you would like to attend, take part or contribute the symposium please let us know by providing your details via this online form.


The Hundred Club is an experimental creative space that uses arts and play for children to explore social justice issues. Free and open to 5-12yr olds and their siblings, parents and carers.

Members of the Club collaborate with artists and designers to realise public projects. The Hundred Club was developed by artist Ruth Beale and commissioned and produced by TACO! It works with children and families across Greenwich and Bexely in SE London. The Club is made possible thanks to funding from the Royal Borough of Greenwich and Arts Council England.
 
The Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments at the University of Greenwich seeks to foster greater inclusivity and reduce inequalities among diverse individuals, communities, and environments. Using the arts, humanities, and social sciences our researchers and practitioners work collaboratively with communities, organisations, and policymakers in the UK and around the world to address the social and environmental challenges of our time.

Creative Playscapes forms part of Estates - an ongoing collaborative research project with artists, communities and groups that considers TACO!’s wider context of urban regeneration, the surrounding estates of Thamesmead and Abbeywood, and how we might collectively re-imagine community and civic space.