Uncle George's playground: Mass housing for kids

Abstract

The book tells the adventures of Marco, Uncle George and their neighbours, people who could be living anywhere in the kind of mass housing shown in the drawings. Through these characters, we want to give young readers (as well as their parents, teachers, and grandparents...) an idea of what this urban social phenomenon was like, while providing a general picture of the different neighbourhoods scattered across various European cities, where many of us live. And our children too. Vlatko and Ines’ determination to produce a book for children as one of the outcomes of the COST Action (CA18137) led to a first draft of the story. Roberto offered to do the illustrations, based on selected neighbourhoods covered within the Action, and Paz contributed to parts of the book in its revised form. The authors would like to express their gratitude to 8-year-old Sara, who had the patience and resolve to read the story and point out the bits which did not reflect the attitude and point of view of a child. The book, which started out as a simple story, gradually took the form of the story/ game/manual it has now become - a learning game for those who would like to put it to even better use. In the column marked A, a number refers to the drawing of a mass-housing complex similar to where the story takes place. The game is to figure out which country and city the building in the drawing is from. The answers are at the end of the book. Below each picture there is a caption (B), which gives clues as to where the example in the picture comes from. For those who want to know more about mass housing, each drawing has its own QR code (C), that provides a link to more information on the housing development shown in the drawing. The information has been taken from the book European MiddleClass Mass Housing: Past and Present of the Modern Community