Anyone walking through the streets of Porto will have come across posters and billboards with slogans such as: ‘I want a green city’; ‘I want a free city’; ‘I want a peaceful city’; ‘I want a lively city’. This is part of Serpentina's awareness campaign on the right to play and the right to the city – A Brincadeira está na rua! (Play is in the street!), which asks us: ‘What do you want from your city?’

‘This question is a kind of pun on the question asked to children, “What do you want for Christmas?”. Perhaps the [best] gift would be to change the city,’ says Maria João. The aim is to reflect on ‘the conditions that the city offers for play; whether it is a child-friendly city.’ ‘The idea that playing outdoors is very important, and is important for health reasons, for children's freedom and creativity, and in all seasons of the year. This is the main message of the campaign,’ Maria João tells Agenda Porto.

The invitation to play in the street is evident in the four posters: ‘trees in the street to play in the shade’; ‘climb the slide barefoot’; ‘go to the garden with school friends’; ‘play outside even in bad weather’. "It's a kind of micro-poetics of the child-friendly city: green, free, gentle and alive. And here we are talking about mobility and ecological issues that offer opportunities to play – more than the toys and screens you have at home."

But let's go back to the beginning of Serpentina. And at the beginning, there was the concern of two mothers about the lack of spaces where their children could play. Patrícia, a social educator, and Maria João, a communication designer, decided to demand the renovation of the small playground in Largo de Soares dos Reis, in Bonfim, where they both live. From there, they began to design an idea for urban transformation based on the right to play and claiming public space for everyone. ‘It has been a process as mothers, because we feel that the city is ill-prepared for us to enjoy it with our children, for them to be able to play freely in the street,’ says Patrícia Costa.

After several unsuccessful applications to different entities, the project was selected to be part of this year's Porto Design Biennale and gained the support of the Municipality of Porto, which will finance the playground's renovation, with work scheduled to begin in June next year.

However, since April, Serpentina has been carrying out several initiatives involving the local community, namely residents and traders in the area, cultural programmers and, of course, the greatest experts in the art of play – children, who have been a kind of consultant for this urban transformation movement [see video below]. “At first, the exercise focused heavily on the Largo de Soares dos Reis playground; we held several workshops and street tours with a group of 35 children from the O Meu Lugar no Mundo association,” says Maria João, emphasising that “children surprise us a lot because they have creative ideas, and it is very interesting to see how generous and altruistic they are.”

The Serpentina urban transformation project, which began with proposals for the rehabilitation of Largo de Soares dos Reis, has been extended to a ‘green triangle’ at the intersection of Barão de São Cosme and Joaquim António Aguiar streets, which they call Parque da Alegria. Maria João and Patrícia challenged the Municipality of Porto to place three garden benches in that unused ‘green triangle’, about a two-minute walk from the playground they want to intervene in. The benches were installed in early October.

‘During our diagnostic walks, we tried to identify places that had potential for use by families in this area. And this one, in fact, was a very underused green space,’ says Patrícia. ‘Suddenly, just by installing these three benches, the municipality realised that the experience of this place had already changed,’ confirms Maria João. ‘We want Parque da Alegria to be a playground laboratory, where this space can be used to experiment with other ways of playing, without slides or swings, but as a space to demonstrate that these structures are not essential for play to happen,’ she argues.

The aim is for this space to be identified as a meeting place; not as a place to pass through, but as a place to be. Indeed, with the installation of benches, the space has become popular. ‘Many families with young children live here, and this is a place where we can meet and socialise a little and get to know our neighbours.’

Patrícia and Maria João hope that these small, low-cost urban transformations will be replicated in other parts of the city. ‘It would be great if we could spread this type of small-scale initiative throughout the city and the rest of the country,’ they say enthusiastically.