Unlocking the power of a child’s imagination to improve urban planning practices

The Indian organization Humara Bachpan, which focuses on improving the livelihood of children in poor urban areas, recently launched an initiative that encourages children from the slums of Delhi, Mumbai, Bubaneshwar and Hyderabad to draw “social maps” of their neighborhood in an effort to voice their concerns, raise awareness, and improve the planning of public sanitation and neighborhood spaces.

This kind of pedagogic program based on the urban imaginary of children harkens back to the Building Beijing Brick By Brick project launched by People’s Architecture and LEGO Education during Beijing Design Week in 2012. In that initiative, children were prompted to use their imaginations to build a LEGO structure that could improve their lives and their neighborhood.