Bringing Playfulness to Auckland CBD, Guerrilla Style

Bringing Playfulness to Auckland CBD, Guerrilla Style

Guerrilla Playspaces is a group of Auckland professionals with a plan to invade the city’s CBD and leave it a more exciting place than they found it.

United by a passion for making Auckland a great place to live and work, the seven-strong team see the opportunity to infuse playfulness into many underused areas of the CBD. Their vision is to create and install multiple high-impact, short duration playspaces – to snap Aucklanders out of their daily grind and give them something unexpected to stumble upon.

“We saw these great city spots going underused and just wanted to change them into fun, playful areas, if only for a short time” said team member Luke Krieg. “It’s about giving Aucklanders a feeling of ownership over their city, making it a place they can enjoy instead of just a place they work”.

Having identified the areas they most want to improve, the team are currently working with landowners for permission to use sites throughout the CBD, from the Waterfront to Aotea Square.

As a pilot project, Guerrilla Playspaces has already captured the imagination of several key industry partners including Fletchers and Resene, and team member Richard Taylor is excited about getting more people on board.

“Guerrilla Playspaces is a legacy project. We are laying down the framework for future creative individuals and businesses to be able to deliver even bigger and brighter installations in the future” says Taylor.

The team have multiple installations under construction – from pop-up mazes to modular flower-and-petals colouring stations -and plan to spring them on an unsuspecting public from mid-September.

Guerrilla Playspaces is a project of the Committee for Auckland’s Future Auckland Leaders Programme. This initiative taps into the energy and insight of the city's emerging leaders, cultivating their passion for Auckland and helping channel it into city-enhancing projects. Nominated by Committee for Auckland members from within their respective organisations, participants are individuals who possess strong leadership, as well as succession potential and most importantly, a shared belief and commitment to helping "make Auckland one of the great places to live and work".

ENDS

© Scoop Media