Blowing flowers and bubbles: Bringing playfulness into public services

What happens when the neighbourhood is so far from the city centre that its residents rarely go into the centre and so stay more where they live? This lack of transport connectivity increases the potential for building community. When the lack of connectivity is so systemic that it prevents people from making a living however, people will just leave.

As part of the Hack (y)our Borders project, I collaborated with different organisations, including Lithuanian civic designers @laimikis which I visited in Vilnius. My trip there started by getting to the community garden, walking through a “hospital for dream curing”. When we arrived in the community garden, Mindugas the steward told us about how they developed the garden to enable people to grow vegetables, show children how their food is made and create activities that bring together local people, such as pumpkin festivals and neighbourhood days.

The concept of a community garden is not new to Vilnius. Indeed, in the Soviet era, people had to apply for allotments, which were traditionally run by the companies people worked for. However, just after they became a democratic country, the allotment plots were privatised and people lost the space to grow food, so now they look for unused space or inner yards to cultivate the soil.

As we started planning out the workshop of making the urban furniture, it was interested to see the spatial and cultural influences that build pattern recognition into our minds, the invisible rules that guide us to plant the furniture to align with the windows of the greenhouse and the hospital and to install the furniture. When you create furniture in which people know one of the codes, i.e. to be able to sit down, but create the infrastructure in such a way that people can also use it to create their own codes. This is what @laimikis call “open code urban furniture”.

Lessons from Adur & Worthing Councils

💬 Play isn’t just for children — it’s how we connect, imagine, and create.
📢 When public spaces invite joy and interaction, communities feel more alive.
👥 Public services don’t have to be serious all the time — play can help us engage, learn, and build together.

Too often, councils and public services focus on efficiency, structure, and process. But what if joy, creativity, and playfulness were also part of the way we work?

Adur & Worthing Councils are exploring this idea. Through art, interactive events, and creative community projects, they are showing how play can make public spaces more inviting and encourage people to get involved.

This post shares what’s worked, what others can learn, and how you can bring playfulness into your own work.

1. Making public spaces more inviting through creativity

A town square, a park, a high street — these places aren’t just for passing through. With the right design, they can become spaces where people connect, slow down, and enjoy themselves.

Adur & Worthing Councils have brought creativity into public spaces by:

✅ Using murals, sculptures, and community art projects to make areas feel more welcoming.
✅ Installing playful, interactive elements — things you can touch, move, or experience in a different way.
✅ Encouraging local artists and residents to shape their surroundings through creative projects.

💡 Example from elsewhere:
Bristol’s “Parklets” project turned parking spaces into tiny public parks with seating, plants, and play areas — making streets more sociable and inviting. (Read more)

🔹 Try this in your organisation:

• Bring colour and creativity to public spaces — murals, street art, or small-scale installations.
• Make places feel interactive, not just functional — install seating, creative signage, or sound features.
• Involve local artists, schools, and community groups in shaping the design.

2. Bringing play into community engagement

People are often asked for their views on local decisions through surveys and formal meetings. But what if participation felt more like play than paperwork?

Adur & Worthing Councils have experimented with this by:

✅ Running creative workshops where people design ideas together.
✅ Using games and storytelling to make consultation events more engaging.
✅ Encouraging informal conversations in places where people already spend time — like markets, parks, or community cafés.

💡 Example from elsewhere:
The “Playable City” project in Bristol experimented with creative ways to engage people — like streetlights that react when you walk past or benches that encourage conversation. (Read more)

🔹 Try this in your organisation:

• Use games, Lego, or drawing to help people explore ideas together.
• Take engagement events to unexpected places — like play areas, shopping streets, or libraries.
• Make consultation interactive — use stickers, quick polls, or simple activities.

3. Encouraging surprise and joy in everyday life

Public spaces can feel rigid and predictable. But small moments of surprise and joy can change how people experience their surroundings.

Adur & Worthing Councils have introduced elements of playfulness by:

✅ Hosting pop-up events — unexpected performances, music, or interactive installations.
✅ Bringing local artists into public projects, giving them space to create work in streets and parks.
✅ Creating opportunities for movement and interaction — like pavement games, community gardens, or simple playful signage.

💡 Example from elsewhere:
Copenhagen’s “Happy City” initiative reimagined urban spaces with playful elements — like swings at bus stops and dance floors in the street. (Read more)

🔹 Try this in your organisation:

• Plan small, unexpected moments of fun in public places.
• Invite artists, musicians, or performers to use shared spaces.
• Make waiting areas more interactive — games, sounds, or movement-based design.

4. Using play to build stronger relationships

Play isn’t just about fun — it’s about trust, collaboration, and learning. By encouraging playfulness, public services can create deeper, more open relationships with residents.

Adur & Worthing Councils have embraced this by:

✅ Building partnerships with creative groups to shape public spaces together.
✅ Encouraging residents to take part in small-scale projects — like community planting, pop-up art, or street design.
✅ Making participation feel personal and enjoyable, rather than just a process.

💡 Example from elsewhere:
The “100 in 1 Day” movement started in Colombia, encouraging communities to create 100 small interventions in one day — tiny, playful improvements to their streets and neighbourhoods. (Read more)

🔹 Try this in your organisation:

• Find creative partners — musicians, artists, performers — who can help bring playfulness to your work.
• Start with small interventions — one playful change can inspire bigger thinking.
• Let people contribute their own creative ideas, rather than just responding to official plans.

What happens next?

Public spaces and services don’t have to be purely functional — they can invite curiosity, joy, and interaction.

This means:
✔ Thinking about how spaces make people feel, not just how they function.
✔ Making engagement playful and creative, not just formal and structured.
✔ Bringing unexpected joy into everyday life, to help people feel more connected to where they live.

💡 If you work in strategy, placemaking, participation, or design, here’s a challenge:

🔹 Look at the spaces and services around you. Where could they be more playful?
🔹 Try one small experiment. Add a creative element to an event, introduce a tiny playful detail in a public space, or make a meeting more interactive.
🔹 Share what works. Let’s make joy and play part of how we design public life.

📢 Have you seen a great example of playfulness in public spaces? Share it in the comments or tag someone doing this well.

🚀 Let’s bring more creativity, joy, and play into public life.