Doug Suisman speaks at MoMA: "The Walking City as a Child’s Muse"

In conjunction with the exhibition Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000, the Museum of Modern Art presented a half-day symposium exploring the impact of play in urban environments on childhood development. The symposium was organized by longtime playground advocate Jane Chermayeff. The sessions featured play theorists, architects and designers, and educators. The afternoon session, called “Designing Playful Cities,” included Adriaan Geuze of West 8, MoMA’s architecture and design curator Juliet Kinchin, Darell Hammond of KaBOOM, Neil Stevenson of IDEO, and SUD’s Doug Suisman. Suisman spoke about the importance of walking in the city on the development of a child, and his or her awareness of their own potential. He quoted architect Louis Kahn’s maxim that “the city is the place of availabilities, where a small child, walking through it, may discover what she wants to do for the rest of her life.”