The Real Play City Challenge is a global competition meant to create impact for children in cities by promoting and contributing to scaling efforts of child-friendly, safe and playful placemaking initiatives.
The Real Play City Challenge is led by the Real PlayCoalition (Arup, Ingka Group [IKEA], The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, and UNICEF) and PlacemakingX (represented by STIPO and Huasipichanga).
Play is essential for children to thrive both now and in the future, but many urban environments lack opportunities for play. That’s why the Real Play City Challenge awards inspiring cities and urban practitioners that have successfully used placemaking to create environments that give people time, space and opportunities to play.
The 1st edition of the Real Play City Challenge celebrated placemaking and city-wide initiatives that have effectively fostered an enabling environment for community-driven play approaches. We invited initiatives globally in our open call for placemakers and cities. Winning initiatives were supported, promoted and shared.
The theme of the second edition? Local Communities, Global Challenges. After a hugely successful launch in 2019, the Real Play City Challenge is back in 2022 to help cities overcome pressing global challenges in their local communities and neighbourhoods through playful placemaking. Three were the categories in the competition: Places where play heals people; Places where play sup[port climate action; Places where play supports us all.
