Playground and toys as a medium in promoting green lifestyle

• Main Authors: Muhamad Ezran Zainal Abdullah, Nor Hamizah Abdul Hamid
• Format: Book Section
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://discol.umk.edu.my/id/eprint/8605/; http://ecodenet.com/ed2015/

Playground, a place where children interact, socialize, develop physical strength and cultivate creativity in a fun way. Playground can be said as a second school for them and maybe a more rounded one compared to educational based school. From here, we know that playground will be the most ideal medium in encouraging and promoting green lifesytle or green design to kids. However, the absence of fundamental idea of green concept inside current playground or toys design should be the most prior alert. Therefore, there is a need for a reconstruction or a through development on playground or toys design in order to embedded the idea of green lifestyle into kids development process. Hence, a conceptual toy design has been develop to simulate a playground features where fundamental element of green design has been embedded. These conceptual product resemble a keruing seeds also known as apitong or Dipterocarpus grandiflorus which is a long lost Malaysian kids flying & spinning toys. The product it self work as a see-saw cum sitting bench. On the other hand, it is philosophically promotes children to reused the product for multiple purpose where its indirectly encourage them to reuse things in order to achieves desirable aims. This is where functionalism and aesthetic meet the needs.