Plus Aziz
for PSFKPatients at the Royal London Children’s Hospital now have a playground, the centerpiece of which is a giant television with which the children can interact. The lively playground has a Pixar-meets-Alice and Wonderland look, equipped with over-sized chairs and chandeliers and bright, colorful toys.
The plush toys are integrated into a television game, so the kids can play with both the physical and digital versions. The television game, Woodland Wiggle, allows kids to paint pictures and play music with their movements in a children’s book-style game. The game creators considered the movements that would be the most therapeutic for the patients when designing the game. Artist and creator Chris O’Shea took into account a wide-ranging span of patient types.
This interactive installation is part of The Ann Riches Healing Space. The space was developed in a collaboration with an internal clinical team and numerous partners such as architects Cottrell & Vermeulen and Morag Myerscough, a graphic designer who regularly contributes to the development of public spaces, and her mother Betty Fraser Myerscough, who’s a textile artist. Other noteworthy collaborators are animator Felix Massie and Brains and Hunch, who were responsible for sound.
Technological achievement aside, the Royal Hospital is essentially demonstrating how the definition of health and wellness are changing. Through this game, O’Shea introduces games that evoke the experience of filling out a coloring book or playing at the arcade with your body. It will be interesting to see how future medical centers are designed once the community at large acknowledges the therapeutic benefits of play.
Image courtesy of Vimeo, Chris O'Shea
This article originally published at PSFK here
PSFK is a Mashable publishing partner that reports on ideas and trends in creative business, design, gadgets, and technology. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment