Children’s spaces and creative adaptation in a high-density neighbourhood of the Bangkok metropolitan region: a case study of the Duang Khae neighbourhood

ABSTRACT This study aimed to explore the characteristics of children’s spaces and the adaptation in the Duang Khae neighbourhood of the Rong Mueang sub-district, in Bangkok. In this study, we adopted multiple methods to collect data from diverse populations: visual questionnaires, focus group interviews, play space mapping, photography activities and a site visit. Our study revealed the children mostly preferred the Foundation for Child Development playground, the Duang Khae temple and the Rot Fai flat playground that is within a permitted traveling distance and does not entail crossing an avenue. The local organization and the temple play a crucial role in providing recreation areas for the community of children and adults. Also, we found that children use narrow spaces in front of their houses (sois) as a common play space and shortcut routes interconnected to the nearby play spaces as a creative network in this high-density neighbourhood.


Children and urbanization in Bangkok
Bangkok's rapid urbanization and rising densification led to significant issues for all citizens and children. By 2030, Bangkok is expected to become one of the world's megacities with a population surpassing 10 million with more than 1.1 million residents under 14 (Population dynamics and Social affairs 2022). With this rapid growth, massive investments in real estate and transportation have changed the physical features of the city (Boonprasirt 2021). In the meantime, Bangkok's citizens face the issue that open spaces have been transformed into commercial, touristic, or high-density residential areas (Palacheeva 2020).
The inadequacy of urban open space does affect not only the quality of life for adults but also for children. As urban settings become the context where most children grow up, the urban environment determines their development (Tomaselli, Woldesenbet, and Brant 2019). A lack of playgrounds is a vital problem that has impacted children's physical and psychological health (Shi 2017). However, playgrounds or other safe places for play are not currently defined as an essential service, despite the evidence that play is critical for children's development and the right to play is a crucial child right as mentioned in Principle 4 of the Children's Rights and Urban Planning Principles by UNICEF that we should provide safe and inclusive public and green spaces for children and the community, where they can meet and engage in outdoor activities (Aerts 2018).
Thus, it is essential to re-thinking urbanization to meet the principles needs of the children. This contribution would be beneficial not only in the dimension of children's quality of life but thrives as a home for future generations.

The previous study and government policy
Recently, a governmental development project, GreenBangkok2030, was established in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region. Many urban lands, such as under flyovers, sidewalks, and canals, will be converted to open public spaces (Mertens 2020). The previous study focused on a characteristic of the seven playground projects under a flyover/expressway in Bangkok and investigated how children used these provided areas (Nunma and Kanki 2021). The typical model of playing tools, multiuse areas for all ages, and flexibly used spaces were found in the results. However, the relationship between provided play areas in neighbourhood local communities has not been investigated yet. Moreover, few researchers have addressed this issue. Therefore, we aimed to fill the gap in our previous study and expand our knowledge in this research field. This paper will specifically answer the following objectives: 1) To understand the local organization's actions to develop play spaces for children in the Duang Khae neighbourhood.
2) To explore the children's preferred play spaces and everyday activities in the Duang Khae neighbourhood.
3) To discuss the creative adaptation implemented in a high-density community by a Duang Khae neighbourhood case study.

Neighbourhood play spaces and alternative areas in a high-density community
The use of the urban space by children differs between high-density and low-density areas (Evans 2004). A low-income environment is less safe, has fewer natural elements and limited accessibility to public play spaces Children from low-income families prefer to play in areas close to their homes, such as community yards, nearby a relative's home and quiet streets, places where informal socializing occurs as well (Ghanbari-Azarneir et al. 2015).
Maputo city, Mozambique, is often denying outdoor play for its children similar to many other cities worldwide. However, children not only play in playgrounds, but also in all parts of their neighbourhoods: their living quarters, around their home, their neighbour's house, and all the way to their school (Tomaselli, Woldesenbet, and Brant 2019). Alaa Mandour (2010) stated that a narrow street that restricts vehicles could provide a cool shady area for neighbours to chat and children to play close to their mother's doorway. In some cases, parents prefer their children to play outside, possibly due to the limited space and the numerous residents of the household (Dewi 2012).
Furthermore, Casey (2007) confirms that it is important to revisit classic ideas, such as adventure playgrounds, urban farms, and street play in the search for alternatives to provide play spaces. Most of the literature on neighbourhood play and alternative areas in low-income high-density communities defines local street play as an important element for children.

Neighbourhood play in Bangkok, Thailand
Regarding the unique characteristics of urban spaces in Bangkok, local people traffic through the city by using shortcuts and narrow spaces such as alleys, commonly known as "sois" (Paksukcharern 2016). Sois are a series of small, narrow and winding paths with a narrow view and limited vehicular access. As local interconnecting routes and social spaces, sois are rather unique spatial elements within Bangkok's urban blocks. This is also supported by Tagosi (2005) 's findings on the play behaviour of children in Wat Phai Ngern, Bangkok, showing that outdoor play mostly takes place on the local road, temple ground, or vacant land near home.
Besides sois, Buddhist temples have had a major role in Thai communities for centuries (Buranaphisut 2002). The relationship between Buddhist temples with the urban lifestyle has been analyzed by Buranaphisut (2002) in three ways: (1) relationship with space, (2) relationship with duty, and (3) relationship with the culture, tradition and religious ceremonies. The temple can be an outdoor area to temporarily perform religious ceremonies that also serves as a public space where social interaction occurs. In most cases, they have been well integrated within the spatial network of local communities (Paksukcharern 2016). Some temple grounds are regular meeting spots and function as daily shortcut routes for residents and passers-by.
The sois and the temple grounds represent the physical and social characteristics of the Bangkok Metropolitan Region. It is interesting to investigate how children currently use these areas in the Duang Khae neighbourhood, Rong Meung District, Bangkok.

Promoting children's play in an urban community
In an urban area, providing a safe play space close to home guarantees accessibility for children and helps parents easily permit their children to go outside. Chatterjee (2017) makes three suggestions on how to invite children to play around their neighbourhood. The first suggestion is children's participation in the designing and building of the spaces with the help of the community. Hart (2016) mentioned that children know more about their community than we expect. This method helps create a sense of ownership in the community, which will then willingly manage and maintain the space. Second, play spaces within a community can be a social corner that offers opportunities for adults and young people to become connected. Last, a neighbourhood on-site team, such as volunteer staff, regularly visiting parts of the neighbourhood would help increase child and parental engagement and encourage families to create safe play spaces in their local area. In this vein, building a strong connection with local communities and collaborating with experts, such as artists, craftspeople, landscape architects, builders, volunteer agencies, playworkers and council officers, is a crucial part of the development of play spaces (Casey 2007). Also, improving access to neighbourhood parks promotes a sense of safety (Veitch, Salmon, and Ball 2008).
Thus, to seek a solution for creating and improving children's spaces in a high-density community in Bangkok, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of the neighbourhood and the existing actions. The summary of this section was used in the questionnaire, the focus group interview, and the discussion.

Research methods
This research is divided into three parts consisting of online interviews and online activity and a site survey as described in Figure 1 below.

Online interview with the local organization FCD (Duang Khae branch)
Online interviews were conducted to understand ideas and collaboration with locals on developing childpurposed areas in the Duang Khae neighbourhood. The online interviews were conducted with the director and staff head of the local organization FCD (Duang Khae branch) in December 2020.

Online activities with children and parents
Data from interviews and activities with children and parents were collected online in collaboration with the FCD (Duang Khae branch) on 13 and 14 March 2021 to investigate play spaces and children's everyday activities. Three methods were used: Visual questionnaires were provided to the participants (26 children of 6-12 years; parents 28-77 years from the Duang Khae neighbourhood), asking their opinion on their neighbourhood's current play spaces and shared activities. The questionnaire was designed to attract children from 6 to 12 years. Complex questions were simplified to pictures and diagrams to improve comprehension, data accuracy, and survey engagement.
The focus group interviews and play spaces mapping activity were based on questions examining current play spaces and children's everyday activities ( Figure 2). Six parents and five children participated in the online interview. In addition, the play spaces mapping activity was used along with the interview. This mapping technique has been identified as a helpful research method applied to children (Hart 2016). The purpose of the play space mapping activity was to clarify location-specific negative or positive  issues that children had raised during the interviews. The instructions provided during the interview were to draw a simple line, circle a place, highlight a significant area, and add a keyword. For example, children were asked to "mark places you always ride or walk to on your own in your neighbourhood." The photograph activity was held with 19 children after interviewing day to examine their favourite play spaces in more detail. A youth group member led children to take a photo around their neighbourhood (Figure 2)

Site visit
The site visit was made on December 18, accompanied by the FCD's staff head and two local volunteers. The primary purpose was to investigate the physical environment in the Duang Khae soi, such as walkways, community spaces, and nodes of activity. A camera, voice recording, and sketching tools were used to collect the data.

Data collection procedures and strategies
The research methods were designed for a remote survey during a pandemic following the three main objectives described in Table 1 below. In addition, tools and strategies were developed to be matched with a specific participant and a specific setting of a high-density community.
• Pre-survey: Besides communicating via email and phone call, visual elements such as pictures, maps, and diagrams were adopted in this stage, showing our background, research objective, and proposed activities. These tools aimed to understand participants better and establish practical cooperation with the children. • During the survey: Questionnaires were simplified to a visual format. In addition, mapping and photography were used after the interview to help participants express their ideas about their neighbourhood's play spaces. • Analyzing data: The initial data from children and parents were summarized along with field survey data. As a result of a very narrow and dense area, a set of drawings: plans, and sections were made to clarify the environment and activities in this sois. Section drawings of each area with actual activities from site visits were made. Layouts of the soils were re-drawn by overlaying changes on top of the aerography map.
Remark: Playing under the flyover in Bangkok from the children's point of view (Nunma and Kanki 2021).

Background and the correlation with foundation for child development
This site area is selected according to our main objective: to explore neighbourhood play spaces in a highdensity of Bangkok and its local collaborations. Importantly, we found the Foundation for Child Development (FCD), an NGO organization situated around the Sa Lak Hin under the expressway playground project (Nunma and Kanki 2021). The FCD was established on 31 March 1982 and has been collaborating with Duang Khae community for almost 40 years Their central mission has been to support children living in urban communities. These factors led us to further the research in this area.

Case study of the Duang Khae neighbourhood
This research was conducted in the Duang Khae alley in the Rong Mueang sub-district, a high-density residential area in central Bangkok. educational institutes, a central business district, and a historic zone, as described in Figure 3 below.

Results
In this section, the outcomes from the interviews and the online activities are presented.

The playground in the Duang Khae soi
In 1994, FCD noted the lack of play spaces for children in the Duang Khae alley, so they founded this child center. Theresa Casey, former head of the International Play Association, collaborated with the play space project by recruiting children in the design of the FCD playground. This play-space project was successful in terms of providing open space, introducing the child center to the local community and integrating children to the play space ( Figure 4). Moreover, this project won the international playground award in London in 2002 (Foundation for Child Development 2021).

The development of the community through the children's involvement
The situation in the Duang Khae neighbourhood was unstable because of drug and crime-related problems  as mentioned by the director of FCD (December 2021).
In 2002, because of the extensive fire in the alley, people realized the importance of registering it as a legal community. The main strategy was to place children in the center of the development plan to connect with the locals. With support from FCD, the alley fulfilled the criteria and was registered as a legal community in 2004. Since 2009, FCD has become a well-known non-governmental organization that successfully encouraged the local community to develop. The FCD development plan was included in the national agenda, in which the Thai government (Prime Minister: Abhisit Vejjajiva) presented it as a case study and a model for other communities. In 2014, artists participated in the wall painting project at the Hua Lam Pong station. This project promoted the popularity of this area, with non-residents visiting this successfully developed community.

Creating community leaders and a youth group
As for the development of the Duang Khae neighbourhood, volunteer leaders and the youth group were important in this process. After the playground opened, other activities were introduced for children to connect to the neighbourhood, such as the healthy breakfast project, the history of alleys project and local foods fair in the community. Regarding the remote activity in March 2021, the youth group was actively supporting the online interview session. For the photography activity, the youth group also led younger children to take a photograph of their favourite places in the community.

Current play spaces' characteristics in the Duang Khae neighbourhood
To explore the preferred play spaces and children's common activities in the Duang Khae neighbourhood, online activities were conducted on 13 March 2021. The results are presented in the following sections.

Parent's point of view on play spaces and children's activities
1) What children play: The common pattern related to outdoor play, group activities with friends (e.g., roleplaying and other games, cycling and running around the sois). Interestingly, playing skateboard was becoming popular among boys older than 9 years old.
2) Where children play: FCD was the most appreciated by the participants. N., P. and B. said that their children sometimes play in the CU 100 Years park, the Rot Fai flat playground and the Sa Lak Hin underpass playground. However, parents are worried about a street accident when children cross the main street to reach places such as the CU 100 Years park.
3) Play spaces and activities on the community's alley: The alley was mentioned as an important area for outdoor play because of the small size of houses, as mentioned by T. and the FCD staff head. The activities that take place are football, role-playing games and hide and seek. In the parents' opinion, the painted walls in the community were fascinating. 4) Future ideal playground: The participants had been considering a potential space for a future play area. It was discussed to reclaim an abandoned area of approximately 1 × 2 m 2 in the soils for a play space. Regarding an ideal playground, natural elements such as sand, soil, water and trees completed the preferred setting for a child to play, as reported by the parents considering themselves in this context. FCD was referred to as an ideal place that includes the ideal play space elements. Besides, the temple was chosen as one of the preferred places because of its big yard that allows for free games and sports.

Parental evaluation of the overall environment in the Duang Khae alley
The visual questionnaires were provided to 29 participants aged 28-77 and they were asked about their satisfaction considering the areas for children in their neighbourhood. Several settings in the community and related issues were examined (Table 2).
Regarding the other play spaces provided in the neighbourhood, the parents scored them the lowest among the options with only 17.9% sharing a positive feeling. On the other hand, the playground in FCD and soils were appreciated with 100% and 96.6% of the parents responding to it positively. This confirmed that playing in the community sois is the most common activity outside the playground.

Children's point of view on play spaces and activities 5.2.3.1. Favourite play spaces in the neighbourhood.
Most of the children (92.3%) stated that they like playing at the FCD playground. In addition, 88.5% and 84.6% of the children said that the Duang Khae temple and Duang Khae school, respectively, were among their favourite places. However, 50% mentioned that they never go to the mall and the CU 100 Years park. Besides the playground area, informal areas to play around their neighbourhood were included, with 55% reporting that they always play at the local alley. The footpath, the bridge and the fence in the Rong Muang area seem to be unpopular play spaces among the children (Table 3, Q2).
Regarding their outdoor activities, running around with friends in the neighbourhood was the most popular activity with 31.2% of children reporting that they like it (Table 4).

Additional information on play spaces and activities
After completing the questionnaires, the play space mapping and photography activities were conducted. In Table 5, the summary of these activities' results is shown.

Play space mapping activity. The Duang
Khae temple and the Rot Fai flat playground were the most mentioned. FCD was stated as a comfortable, green and fun area. Regarding the least likable place, the Sa Lak Hin underpass playground was the place that children mentioned the most. The reason for this was that it is a distant, dark and narrow alley. In addition, the Hua Lam Pong train station was mentioned by one participant only. Interestingly, the CU 100 Years park was not mentioned at all.

Photography.
There was a total of three places where 19 children took a picture: FCD, the Duang Khae temple, and the Rot Fai flat playground. Most children (9 of them) took a picture of the Rot Fai flat playground as their favourite play space. The Duang Khae temple was photographed 6 times, followed by the FCD.

The creative adaptation by analysis of the play spaces' characteristics in the Duang Khae neighbourhood
In this section, we analysed four main topics: play spaces, concerning and preferred areas according to children's and parents' points of view, and accessibility:

Play spaces in the Duang Khae neighbourhood
There were seven available public play spaces (red dotted line; Figure 5: 1) the FCD playground, 2) the Duang Khae temple's yard, 3) the playground in the Rot Fai flat playground, 4) the Duang Khae school, 5) the Sa Lak Hin underpass playground, 6) the CU 100 Years park and 7) the Hua Lam Pong station.

The most concerning and reliable areas in parents' opinion
Rama and Charu Mueng Road were the most concerning areas regarding an accident ( Figure 6; purple street). The other smaller streets were concerning because of the lack of illumination and the entailed dangers. The pink box in Figure 6 displays the most reliable play spaces in this neighbourhood, i.e., FCD, the temple and the soils. The green box in Figure 6 shows that the CU 100 Years park is acceptable if the children visit with company.

The most concerning issues and preferred activities according to the children
Negative opinions were emitted for the CU 100 Years park, the Sa Lak Hin underpass playground, and the Rot Fai flat playground. The atmosphere of the Hua Lampong station and the Sa Lak Hin alley was described in the figure 7 below as dark, with narrow streets and strangers. The positive responses to FCD and the temple were due to the existence of a variety of playground equipment, the natural elements, the  access to skateboard ramps and space to play football and the snacks.

Accessibility and distance to the play spaces
Six routes and their distance to the play spaces are presented in Figure 8. To reach to the CU 100 Years park, the Sa Lak Hin playground, and the Hua Lam Pong station, children have to walk farther through other communities and cross the main street. Thus, these three routes are not preferred by the children and their parents.
To sum up, findings from online surveying and field observation indicated that children preferred using the local routes as shown in figure 9 below. The green lines represent the four routes to the Rot Fai flat playground, which children could follow without having to cross the main street. Children's meeting corner is located in the middle of the soils that conveniently connects to the temple via a shortcut.
A narrow space (0.8-1.8 meters) in front of the houses has been used not only as a walkway but also as an external living room with multipurpose functions  such as social space, pantry, parking, garden and hanging clothes area. The activities and the physical environment of the soils are illustrated in Figure 10.

Discussion and conclusions
This study conducted online surveys and observations to provide new insight into the children's environment and their adaptation in a high-density neighbourhood of Bangkok. The discussion and conclusions are described following the three main research questions below:

Local actions
The first purpose of this study was to discover the local actions in this neighbourhood. We found that FCD is crucial in terms of improving children's quality of life and the local community. The main strategy was to involve children in designing their playground and enhancing the resident's feeling of ownership in the community which is paralleled with the study of children's participation in designing play spaces by Hart (2016). The FCD's actions advocate Casey (2007) and Chatterjee (2017) which claim about having an on-site team that directly collaborates with the locals and other agencies to support the idea of promoting children's play spaces in an urban community. In addition, our findings revealed that FCD became the most preferred play space for children and enhanced the trust between youngsters and adults in the community. It is assumed that to improve children's spaces in a high-density community, the settings and a strong connection of the local community are likely to relate and grow together. Thus, to integrate this solution to the play space design, the official top-down process could be replaced with an informal scenario: a child-centered approach integrated with an on-site team of locals functioning before and after the project.

Children's spaces and activities
The second purpose was to examine the current play spaces' situation and explore children's activities in their neighbourhood. Our findings on children's and parents' perspectives reveal that FCD and Duang Khae temple was their most favourite places to go play which are in the central block of the Rong Muang district (Figure 11). Street and alleys are informal places for children to go play outdoors if a playground is not an option (Tomaselli, Woldesenbet, and Brant 2019). Regarding activities, rolled play, hide and seek, and running around alleys were confirmed by parents as a common play. These results proved the previous study of Alaa Mandour (2010) and Veitch, Salmon, and Ball (2008) that due to the lack of open spaces located in close proximity to home and the compact area of their houses, local alleys were the preferred play spaces for children. Most importantly, the soils are an alternative play space for children and constitute the community hub for adults in the neighbourhood. This confirms Tagosi's finding that even with the changing social life and the urban transformation, children continue to prefer playing on the temple ground (Tagosi 2005). When developing a play space for children in high-density neighbourhoods, the existing play space networks in a community, such as alleys and temples, should be considered (Paksukcharern 2016).

Creative adaptation
The third purpose aimed to discuss the creative adaptation utilized in this high-density area. According to the second finding, children prefer traveling through a local pedestrian network and using small neighbourhood spaces to avoid crossing the main street to those areas. Interestingly, the soils are well-integrated as a pathway or shortcut connecting to their favourite play spaces: FCD, the temple, and the Rot Fai flat playground. The lack of spaces, accessibility and pedestrian safety issues limit the opportunities of play spaces in this high-density community. However, children and locals could adapt available resources to develop a temporary play space ( Figure 12). Thus, the characteristic of this play space could be summed up as a creative adaptation of the Duang Khae neighbourhood.
Lastly, our findings strongly suggest that designers, planners and authorities reconsider developing temple ground, re-connecting the upcoming project to local routes and promoting the local organizations. In the future, we would like to conduct further qualitative studies to explore architects and designers' perspectives on designing children's spaces in the urban community. Notably, this is the first study to our knowledge adopting multiple methodologies to discuss the opinion of a diverse sample of boys and girls of different ages, parents, and organizations during a pandemic situation. The children's needs and the community's creative adaptation should be taken into account for the delivery of an optimum environment in low-income communities in the future.
focuses on children's outdoor environment and promoting child's play areas in a high density city.