Jogar para projetar, habitar jogando

Abstract

As adults, we often feel a nostalgic longing to recapture the primal spontaneity of dreaming, experimenting, playing, and having fun. How can spaces be designed in a way that can reclaim this fantasy seemingly lost in childhood and where the user is not necessarily a child but can still play? This exploration does not aim to intersect architecture with childhood in order to return to it, but rather to propose its use as a theme for exploring an essential connection with the creative process. This theoretical lense focuses on the openness of the primitive act of "playing" and the use of "play" as the foundation of a creative universe not infantilized but characterized by a playful approach and a rejection of mere productivity, despite the seriousness implied by professional practice. It presents the opening of a plural mental and physical space, not surrendered to functionality, but open to imagination, adaptability, and, consequently, to uncertainty, incoherence, and indefiniteness: spatial qualities that are usually rejected. From this perspective, this dissertation proposes observing architecture through three related yet independently interpretable dimensions: the project in direct association with the child - the school space as a starting point animated by practical cases observed firsthand;3 the architect as a multifaceted figure who designs through play allowing others to play - an exploration of the works of Aldo van Eyck and Lina Bo Bardi, inserted in distinct contexts and whose playful vision goes beyond the response to a school program; and the object dissertation treated as a practical design exercise which, reflecting play as a personal driving force behind design, aims to simultaneously be an open invitation to play.