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Cool to School - the fun school path

Now the children choose the safest route to school.

Billund has a goal: They want to be the Children’s Capital. 

It is a project Billund Municipality and the KIRKBI Foundation have teamed up on and have created the organization CoC Playful Minds to implement. In Playful Spaces, which are responsible for the development of the physical urban public space, together with 20 children, we have created a safe and fun school path for the young school children at Billund School. 

It is a re-establishment of an old path and the challenges have been a bit of a queue: A small budget, corona which meant that all meetings were outdoors, neighbors who became worried and deliveries that kept waiting. But now it stands here: the Cool-to-School path with all its colors and lights:

Udviklet for
CoC Playful Minds
Billund Municipality
0th.-3th. grade children at Billund school

In cooperation with:
12 Children who participated in
Young Urban Designers
Masterclass that took place in
CoC Playful Minds
(6 weeks course)

Location:
Billund Idrætcenter
Kærvej 501,
7190 Billund
Denmark

Before
After

WORKSHOP WITH CHILDREN

Through a design workshop with children over six weeks, we investigated the area and pinpointed the places that the children found problematic:

  • The path was too narrow for two people to cycle/walk
  • The path seemed long and unmanageable (completely straight for 409 m looks very looooong)
  • The surface was uneven (however, some of the children highlighted this as a plus point of the path)
  • The path was very dark and the bushes on the left created uncertainty because they were so impenetrable.
  • Most importantly: Colors were missing!
Even a gray day becomes festive when you slalom your way to school through the forest of colored trunks

A TRIBAL FOREST BECOME A NEW SLIP ROAD

The over 400 meters long path was widened from 1.2 meters to 3 meters wide, we had a lighting analysis done and lampposts moved etc. so that the lighting was optimal. 

 

Bushes and trees were cut back so that they still form a green wall, but a lighter and more open kind. 

 

The biggest change, however, was that we transformed the small green area into a slalom course with colorful trunks and colored sun sails. 

 

The idea is that it is a bit difficult to cycle through the many tribes at first, but that over a school year with the same trip to and from school every day, eventually they become masters of taking the colorful path. 

 

We asked the children to name the path and there was agreement that the Cool-to-School path was the right name for this particular path.

Thanks to Johnny Madsen, Billund for the good pictures

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