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Arch benjamin hwang sp26 i4

It takes a village to grow play

This project reimagines the city as a school where carbon cycles become legible through children’s everyday acts of play. By transforming municipal organic waste into mycelium playground structures, carbon storage becomes a material system that children can physically shape, wear down, and regenerate through seasonal participation. As play erodes structures and communities replant worn material into living landscapes, children’s engagement with both play and plant growth becomes a visible measure of the city’s ecological cycles. Their actions do not simply occupy urban space, but actively record, renew, and reveal how the city metabolizes waste, growth, and care over time, turning the playground into a civic instrument through which environmental stewardship is learned, measured, and collectively experienced.