Pop-up play and Activations

What is pop-up play?

Pop-up play spaces are temporary play spaces that include loose parts, are often community-initiated, and supported by local councils and communities. They are usually free and supervised by playworkers, together with parents and carers and event staff (if applicable).

We’ve been inspired by the Pop-up Adventure Play movement led by Suzanna Law and Morgan Leitcher-Saxby and wanted to create a bigger drive for community-scale play opportunities so that local councils, parents and community businesses and organisations could witness the power of play as played out by children and young people.

Creating play activations: A case study

Boxville was created on the streets of Leederville as part of the Fringe World Festival in 2018. This award-winning event has led many local councils around Perth WA and surrounding regions to set up similar spaces as part of their local events and community engagement activities.

Boxville is a pop-up urban village created by children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. It consists primarily of cardboard boxes which children manipulate through cutting, tearing, arranging and constructing/deconstructing to create a shared place for living.

It’s no secret that Boxville is a great place to play and make. Children and young people can take over a space and generate their own playground, right in the midst of daily urban (and rural!) life.

What did we do?

Step 1. We gathered likeminded people (including children) together to design the idea. We drew our ideas out so that we could share them with others and include in our event proposal.

Step 2. We described the benefits of free play and playing out for children and young people. We had observed that many local festivals and events focused on food, drink and musical acts, but often had little available for kids to sink their teeth into. Promoting play was high on our agenda.

Step 3. We schooled ourselves in the playwork principles so we didn’t adulterate children’s play during the event. We set out our risk management strategy, using a strength-based approach to focus on risk-benefit analysis (rather than be risk averse, which can adulterate children’s play even more).

Step 4. We gathered our resources together for the big event. This included befriending local businesses to obtain cardboard boxes and materials. We became members of REmida Creative Reuse Centre (the only one in the southern hemisphere!) to obtain a variety of reusable loose parts.

Step 5. We played! Well, we supervised children’s play on the day (and at a respectful distance) and engaged parents and event goers in conversations about pop-up play and the benefits of free play for children and young people.

Step 6. We debriefed afterwards during our clean up and pack up. What had we noticed? What conversations had we had? What would we include next time? How could we share this experience with others? Our learnings cycled into each play space as our skills and confidence developed.

Some of our other community activations have included:

• successive Arty Farty Children’s Christmas party, Leederville from 2018 to current day (festive themed pop-up play space)

• Scribblers Festival Family Day, 2021 and 2022 (pop-up play space and arts activities)

• All Saints College Pasar Malam, February 2020 (‘crate’ wall of China play space)

• York Festival, October 2019 (escape maze built in collaboration with Junkadelic and students from York High School)

• Perth Greek Festival, October 2019 (festive ‘box wars’ in collaboration with Junkadelic and students from Mount Hawthorn Primary School)

• Mount Hawthorn Streets and Lanes Festival, May 2019 (box escape maze in collaboration with Junkadelic and Eco Faeries)

• Subiaco Street Party, “The Crate Wall of China” April 2019 (nighttime pop-up play space)

• Boxville @ Leedypalooza’s UnFair Day 2019 (street based pop-up play space)

• "Boxville", part of the award-winning 'Leedy Open Streets' Unfair Day in Leederville WA (street based pop-up play space part of Fringe World 2018)

• My Story My Home exhibition, in partnership with the Art Gallery of WA, a craft-based pop-up play activation, 2017

• WLPS Spring Show, carnival side show themed pop-up play space

Plus numerous community events including local sporting clubs and school fundraisers and events.

We love to collaborate with community groups, artists and events teams. Talk to us about working together!

Download our brochure for more.

What others have said about our pop-up play spaces…

Discover possibilities.

"In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportionate to the number and kind of variables."

— Simon Nicholson, Architect. 1977