Child-Friendly City

How do children and young people experience and use outdoor spaces in Oslo?

Photo: Lala.no

With the assignment Child-Friendly City for the Planning and Building Agency, Oslo Municipality and the Urban Environment Agency in Oslo Municipality, A-lab's landscape architects map 60 urban spaces in Oslo distributed over 15 districts. The participation of children and young people across the city is carried out in parallel. A journalist from the magazine ByplanOslo joined and met young people when landscape architect Gunn Helen Hansen and user involvement expert Astri Margareta Dalseide visited the urban spaces at Veitvet and Linderud.

The adults have asked the young people at Årvoll what the environment is like, but not so much about outdoor areas. It was good that we were asked about it now, says Gabriela Weronika Bodnar (15) from Bjerke youth council. She has the impression that young people most often hang out in places close to where they live and not as often down in the city. She therefore hopes that the project can lead to improvements in the various districts.

Photo: Grape Architects

- The task we have been given is a mapping task, while the upgrading of the urban spaces depends on the municipality's budgets and development agreements with the developer. We are keen to find out what children and young people themselves think about their district. The mapping gives us a good basis for knowing how things are in the districts, says Liv Marit Søyseth, senior architect at the Planning and Building Agency.

- It doesn't take much for an urban space to be good. The urban spaces themselves and their programs and activities must also be seen as the local environment and upbringing environment for children and young people. Children and young people live their lives in the city's various structures and spaces. Factors such as traffic, noise, vegetation and how friendly the design of the buildings is, influence how young people feel that urban spaces welcome them, says Gunn-Helen Hansen.