Thesis supervisor
: Jean-Pierre Lévy
This thesis aims to examine the reasons for differences in usage within public recreational spaces, highlighting the tension between project design and management methods and the way children appropriate these spaces. The central hypothesis of this research is that this discrepancy is part of a process of standardization of the uses of public spaces, in which the recreational city is merely a new framework for design, management, and usage practices. The results of this research emphasize that, far from being anarchic, children's practices in public spaces are organized in a dialectical relationship with the norms in force. The discrepancy in uses, perceived as transgressive by designers and managers, is in fact an appropriation and redeployment of the norm. The principles of standardization of play areas, under the guise of ensuring everyone's safety, amount to an over-infantilization of children. The logic behind repositioning play in public spaces is therefore more about updating mechanisms of social control than about caring for children.
Thesis defense on Monday, December 10, 2018
Thesis keywords:
deviation, norms, children, uses, public space, play, danger
Thesis in spatial planning, urban planning
Year of enrollment
: 2012
Composition of the jury
Philippe Bonnin, Emeritus CNRS Research Director, AUS – LAVUE – Examiner
Catherine Deschamps, Assistant Professor, HDR, EVCAU, ENSAPVS – Examiner
Yankel Fijalkow, Professor, CRH – LAVUE, ENSAPVS – Rapporteur
Maryonnve Prévot, Senior Lecturer, HDR, TVES – University of Paris Lille 1 – Rapporteur
Jean-Pierre Lévy, CNRS Research Director, LATTS – Thesis Director
Alain Costes, Architect-Urban Planner, Atelier 15, CIFRE Thesis Tutor