National Festival of Making – Tinkertown

Tinkertown is a playful place-making event supporting children and families to design and build their own structures from scrap timber.

Visitors are provided with training and tools and are free to play, learn and discover while developing their creativity and construction skills.

The open nature of Tinkertown offers children the opportunity to explore and experience a different kind of play; it enables children to investigate their imagination and ideas, learn about risk (within a managed situation), build physical and social skills and produce a piece of work which is inhabitable, autonomous and of their own.

Children are free to construct/design in any way they choose, continuously assessing the design and structural integrity of their dens with support from the architecturally trained staff – therefore learning engineering by doing.

Participants leave with an improved knowledge of how structures ‘work’, the build process, logistics and teamwork.

Tinkertown is delivered by The City of Play as part of the National Festival of Making.