paiportAprop – Temporary and participatory playground
“paiportAprop” is a temporary intervention located in Parc de Vila Amparo in Paiporta (València), developed after the 2024 DANA with the aim of providing a space for play, encounter and coexistence while the municipality was progressing in its recovery process. The floods rendered many of the spaces used daily by children unusable, and the Colegio Territorial de Arquitectos de Valencia promoted an initiative —funded by FAMPA, CTAV and Save the Children— to create a simple and safe place at a particularly delicate moment for families. The project emerged from urgency and from the desire to accompany the community through an architecture that is close, lightweight and respectful of its surroundings.
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Huerta, memory, identity…
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The intervention takes as a reference the agricultural landscape of l’Horta Sud, which forms an essential part of Paiporta’s identity. Working in a park affected by a climate emergency made it necessary to use materials closely linked to the territory, capable of enabling rapid assembly, low environmental impact and coherence with the local reality. For this reason, rice straw bales from the flooded marshlands were used, along with greenhouse structures commonly found in the huerta, jute and sisal ropes and fabrics, compost made from rice husk and carob, native plants and small vegetable gardens. The purchase of these materi-als from local companies affected by the DANA also represented a gesture of economic support for the region.
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From the outset, the future reuse of the greenhouse structures was also planned, as they will be transformed into nature classrooms in local secondary schools. This foresight en-sured that the intervention would retain a useful life beyond its dismantling, integrating the project’s temporary nature with educational continuity.
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Participation, community, childhood…
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The design and construction process was carried out through a brief but meaningful partici-patory approach. In less than a month, workshops were organised with children, families and young architects, both in Paiporta and at the CTAV “piset”. Through play —models, loose pieces and exploratory dynamics— the needs and desires of children were identified and grouped into different types of activities: dynamic areas, resting zones, comfort spaces and places to read, climb, paint or simply be.
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Construction took place collectively over a single weekend, with a particularly strong in-volvement of children in tasks related to vegetation. Planting, watering and working with the soil fostered a direct and friendly relationship with the space, turning the process into an accessible and shared experience of collaboration.
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Places, paths, encounters…
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The intervention was located in an underused area of the park, taking an existing line of trees as a structuring element. From this natural boundary, a linear route was designed, composed of three differentiated areas conceived as a progressive sequence of spaces with varying intensities of use.
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The first zone, the most active, was configured as a space for play and exploration. It in-cluded a small climbing structure built from straw bales and ropes, conceived as a soft, safe and transformable construction. The bales were placed on recycled pallets, raising them off the ground to protect them from moisture and extend their durability. Ropes were used both as playful elements and to secure the bales to the pallets, ensuring stability without rigid fixing systems.
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This area also included a sensory greenhouse, where sisal ropes were braided to create a light envelope over the existing structure, allowing vegetation to be suspended and gener-ating an immersive, ever-changing atmosphere. The space was completed with tables and benches for quieter activities such as reading, drawing or workshops, incorporating straw bales covered with jute fabric to improve comfort.
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The second area, calmer in character, was organised around a cognitive greenhouse cov-ered with jute fabric that filtered light and provided shade, contributing a natural and wel-coming texture. Around it were arranged a sandpit, small gardens, gathering spaces for young people and soft surfaces for sitting or lying down. Straw bales, once again raised on pallets and covered with jute, functioned as elements of furniture and informal seating.
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Finally, the third zone consisted of a small semicircular amphitheatre intended for storytell-ing, simple activities, collective gatherings or free play. It was built using straw bales placed on pallets, forming soft tiered seating covered with jute fabric that unified the whole and offered a more pleasant user experience.
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The sequence of the three areas proposed a gradual transition between activity, calm and encounter, offering different ways of inhabiting the park. The coherent use of simple, recy-cled materials —straw bales, pallets, sisal ropes and jute fabrics— reinforced the architec-tural unity of the intervention and encouraged free and diverse appropriation of the space.
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Learnings, bonds, continuities…
Although the intervention was temporary, it generated valuable insights into how to respond to emergency situations through proximity, listening and care. Sembrar Jocs helped to reac-tivate an everyday space at a time when children needed it most, demonstrating that archi-tecture can operate discreetly yet effectively when oriented towards accompanying pro-cesses of community recovery.
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Beyond its dismantling, what remains are the relationships built, the shared work and the lived experience of those who took part. The intervention opened a broader conversation about how to inhabit a territory affected by the climate crisis, about the importance of offer-ing quick yet thoughtful responses, and about architecture understood as a tool to accom-pany processes of repair through closeness and without unnecessary protagonism.
