Streets feel a lot different when you’re only 95cm tall. Like any kind of infrastructure, kids experience streets differently than adults and have unique needs when it comes to safety and access.
In 2018 we created a Streets for Kids Reverse Periscope, a simple cardboard-and-mirrors device that lets adults experience a street from a child’s height. It’s designed to help adults better understand the sightlines, hazards, and uncertainties as well as the unique and surprising aspects of navigating a world built for people twice as tall as you.
We first debuted the periscopes at a “walkshop” in Los Angeles, and since then partners in Lima and Bogotá have held workshops to help improve the periscope’s design and instructions.
Today we are excited to announce a brand new resource for anyone interested in creating Streets for Kids. Download “How Do Kids Experience Streets?” our new guide to creating your own Streets for Kids Reverse Periscope:
This new guidebook includes step-by-step instructions for assembling your own reverse periscope, as well as suggestions for how to use it and even how to lead your own workshop with members of your community.
We want to make it easy for everyone to use this new tool. In March 2023, we held a free online discussion about the Streets for Kids Reverse Periscope and how to use it. Watch the recording and the step-by-step tutorial here.
In 2023, ten cities across four continents started designing their streets for kids. Collectively, the cohort reclaimed over 40,000 SqM of public space that prioritizes children and caregivers, engaged over 4,000 children in the process, and trained 140 practitioners.
Learn how street transformations designed for children can be scaled up and made permanent.
Global giants Janette Sadik-Khan (Transport Principal, Bloomberg Associates and Chair of Global Designing Cities Initiative), and Salvador Rueda (Director of Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona) arrived in New Zealand’s capital to back the sustainable street changes that are putting people at the heart of Wellington’s streets.
