Lukas Ritson on Play Spaces, Wonderment and Sustainability

Lukas Ritson is an educator, designer and international speaker, including TEDx. Lukas’ work has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of children across Australia and overseas.

In addition to advocating for play within education and supporting an award-winning innovative design team in the early childhood sector, Lukas co-founded the company Wearthy with his wife Vanessa. Wearthy has influenced conversations on the needs of school children and continues to make an imprint on community engagement.

Lukas’s background as an Early Childhood Educator and community gardener is evident as he discusses how play, designing play spaces and environmental sustainability comes together.

In this interview, Lukas explains his and his team’s design process, starting with the children’s lived experiences in their own, unique community and society. He explains how a well-designed environment allows children to thrive and grow.

We discuss the design process including selecting plants, involving community, how the environment creates behaviour and by observing children’s behaviour, we can better meet their needs.

Lukas explains ‘Wonderment’ in nature and how all environment, both physical and emotional, should include time, freedom and possibility. He says “we want to create the types of experiences where the child’s agency is respected and when we’ve got a robust environment, to explore and experience, the children by association are going through sensory fusion”

Links:

https://www.wearthy.co/

https://www.facebook.com/wearthy.co/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHiTaNgtLzGoRom9Bv5r-4g

https://www.instagram.com/wearthy.co/

Play it Forward – Wearthy Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2bUj4635bjct6yf96ExnK6

Ellen Sandseter ‘Risky play’: https://ellenbeatehansensandseter.com/

Dr Sandra Duncan: https://sandraduncan.com/