Play First: Making Space For Play

The word “play” doesn’t always have the best PR: we’re often told that playing is childish or unproductive, a distraction from the grown-up responsibilities of the real world. With hustle culture and demands on our productivity more ingrained in our minds than ever, creating and sustaining spaces dedicated to play can feel self-indulgent by comparison.

And yet the insights coming out of our Play First series tell a different story. For young people in particular, play can be a vital tool for social connection, creative exploration, and building community. Far from an indulgence or distraction, protecting the places we play together can be critical for wider culture and society.

Study after study has shown the importance of open space and collective play to childhood development, social cohesion and psychological wellbeing. “Our strength as our species lies in our capacity to learn and adapt, evolving culturally as well as biologically,” writes the psychologist David Neale. “Our lifelong predilection for play may be part of what underpins this capacity.”

Emma Warren’s “Up The Youth Club”, which maps the history of UK youth spaces from the 1600s to the present day, shows how they’ve shaped individual lives and society as a whole. Warren describes the youth club as “a broadly warm and welcoming space where those who are in their second decade of life can gather regularly, in person, without compulsion, to do things they like doing” - to play, in other words.

That playful space has been critical to the UK’s cultural progress. “The music created here was fundamental in the development of the 2-Tone sound”, reads a blue plaque on the wall of the Holyhead youth club in Coventry, where various members of the Specials met as teenagers. Wiley’s dad was a youth worker, with much of the early grime scene coalescing around a variety of East London youth clubs.

More fundamentally, spaces devoted to play have consistently shaped how young people see the world: a 2009 study by the Greater London Authority found that 41% of respondents attended youth clubs once a week, with 93% reporting that “it has made a positive difference to their lives.” Warren’s book ends on a depressing note, however: between the election of the coalition government in 2010 and the end of 2023, the UK lost more than 1,200 youth clubs and 4,500 youth workers, jettisoned by local councils as their budgets were slashed.

This decline reflects wider pressures on “third spaces” of all kinds, where people can meet, interact and play freely. In 2019, research by the Guardian found that London’s green spaces were being fenced off for months at a time over the summer months, dramatically limiting community access to open spaces. Another study last year from University College London into the design of the UK’s urban spaces found that there is a “constant challenge between building up housing and keeping enough green, open amenity and play space.”

All of which makes it more important than ever to celebrate the spaces where we’re empowered to play rather than produce.

In South London, Kwake Bass’ open-ended beatmaker cypher Block Power Music suggests that a resurgence of interest in the playful energy of grime and rap clashes, led by platforms like Travs Presents, Victory Lap and Steeze Factory, aren’t limited solely to MCs. Rather than a single headline artist hogging the limelight, more playful, collaborative and non-hierarchical models of culture seem to be popping up everywhere.

Other platforms like Reprezent Radio have effectively replicated the structure of a youth club within a radio studio, offering an open and accepting space for young people to explore their creativity, and begin building their careers, with their alumni including Novelist, Stormzy and Jorja Smith. The government’s recent announcement of £500m in funding for youth clubs, in an attempt to undo some of the damage caused by their predecessors, suggests that the tide might finally be shifting.

‍

Play might not always get the respect it deserves, but sooner or later it shows its worth. In 2012, the South Bank Centre announced the demolition of the infamous concrete warren of ramps and rails known as the Undercroft. Despite being the epicentre of UK skate culture since the 1970s, the fact that it was merely a space for play meant it was seen as disposable. A massive public campaign was launched, which led to the demolition being cancelled: later this year, the Undercroft is being honoured with a retrospective exhibition in the galleries upstairs.

All of this suggests that, far from a disposable or childish pastime, play continues to sit at the heart of how we express ourselves, explore new ideas and connect with the people around us. Rather than shutting those ideas down or dismissing them, we should all be looking for new spaces in which to play, and protecting the ones we’re lucky enough to have.

Want to talk through these insights? Get in touch: info@onro.ad