Swing Time in Paris
A Story of Tactical Urbanism in the City of Light
This past July, I was invited to take part in the inaugural Summer Paris Innovation Fellowship with company Five by Five.
I was tasked with the challenge of turning ‘Paris into a Playground’ and pitched the idea of whimsical street furniture. I wanted to continue my work around Play in the City by using public space as a platform for inquiry and experimentation about the invisible boundaries of the city.
I had done a swing project in Dallas in 2013, where I learned to create and deploy a small structure for the purposes of experimentation and proof of concept in the public arena — that project grappled with the re-thinking of a parking space, and how to incorporate play directly on the street.
In Paris, my major challenges were knowledge of the rules and access to material resources. Without a legal framework, I was able to try things that felt innocuous, yet acknowledging that I could learn the cultural and legal boundaries in a first-hand-way at any given time. Rather than building a structure which would have cost a lot, I used the infrastructure of Paris as the frame to hang the swings which were made out of scrap-wood and rope.
I kept a vlog of the project, daily 1 min videos, to show how the project unfolded, show how I built the swings, where I hung them, some of the challenges I faced, people who helped, and all the fun we had. The final result was 2 swing prototypes — 1 large, 1 small — hung in 3 locations in Paris.
The Balançoire Project
Day 01
Day 02
Day 03
Day 04
Day 05
Day 06
Day 07
Day 08
Day 09
Final Presentation
The last day of the Fellowship — Day 10. The entire journey of the project combined into a short film, overlaid with the narrative I delivered for the presentation.
Micro Vids
These 10–15sec vids, were meant to be a snapshot of the swing in action. I posted them to social media with word Balançoire fading in and captions that described where one could swing, “On a bus stop,” “On a tree by the Seine,” and “On the entrance to a Metro Station.”
I think Play is so important to cities. I want to continue to experiment and come up with long-term solutions that make our cities fun and whimsical — be it swings or other tools that invite us to interact with the city.
Thanks to everyone who made this project a reality. There’s definitely more to come!
