This thesis presents the graduation project ‘Play on Your Way’, in which play route concepts have been researched and designed by using child participation. The project was committed by the National Youth Fund Jantje Beton, who aims to create and retain a public space where children (age 6-12) feel free and encouraged to play and be active in. They do this by devising, financing and organizing projects that contribute to reaching this goal. Project scope: A problem with current projects is that most ideas are generated from an adults point of view, and therefore do not meet with the wishes of children. The project’s scope is to design play concepts for the public space, starting with thoroughly researching what the target group wants and needs and including them in the process. This way, an example can be set for the approach of generating solutions for play opportunities in the future. Play routes were chosen as an example case. Shortly put, a play route is a route with play elements, enabling children to play (safely) on their way from point A to B. Analysis: First of all, the project scope was specified further by researching for which age group and type of location the public space is least accessible and encouraging for play. It was found that children in grade 3-5 (about 6-8 years old) and living in urban areas face the most restrictions when it comes down to playing in the public space or getting somewhere. Next, a short literature study on the target group’s characteristics and behaviour was done, giving some insight in what the target group is like and how to execute research with them. The target location was analysed further as well, which made clear that the most urban areas of the 5 most urbanized municipalities of the Netherlands mainly exist of ‘urban, stacked residential streets’. This concluded in a list (and examples) of characteristics of this type of street that could be important in the design phase. Finally, the rules and regulations for play elements were analysed to get familiar with the basic restrictions for designs. Research: The research phase was where the child participation mainly took place. To find out what the experiences and wishes of the target group are concerning the public space (focussing on routes and playing), contextmapping and co-research was executed. During the contextmapping, 20 children of the target group filled in a sensitizing booklet with short assignments about routes and playing, and 15 children (groups of 3) participated in generative sessions about these topics. Five couples participated in the co-research, where the children walked a route of their choice and made assignments on their way. General conclusions about playing were for example that the target group likes competition/challenges, climbing/clambering, games like tag, hide and seek and hopscotch, and playing together. The most common route is from home to school and back, followed by routes to friends, sports, music lessons, playgrounds/parks and the swimming pool. Nature and art is liked on a route, and traffic and vehicles are associated most often with negative experiences. Some children already play along these routes (for example by doing a bicycle race). The specific examples that came out of the research were clustered into inspiration sheets. These quotes, drawings or pictures appeal to one’s imagination much stronger than a general list of conclusions, and make child participation such a powerful method. Design: In the design phase, ideas were generated from the inspiration sheets (backed up by the general conclusions and findings of the analysis phase). Since the inspiration data was not clustered yet when the very first ideas were generated, these ideas were more often based on general conclusions than on unique remarks of children. It became very clear that the remarks gave much more inspiration than the general conclusions, and thus what the use of child participation can be. In the end, about 25 ideas were documented as examples of the project’s output. A range of the ideas was evaluated by a group of the children that participated in the research, and some adults. This showed that the children felt connected with the ideas and both the children as the adults were enthusiast about most of them. The evaluation also resulted in some suggestions concerning function, safety, appearance and maintenance that should be taken into account when developing the ideas further. Tool: To make sure that Jantje Beton can communicate the process and results of this project as an example of why child participation should be used more often, a tool was made. The tool is a fan with 17 sheets, summarizing the process step by step. A general explanation is presented on the front side of each sheet, with a specific example of this project on the back. The tool is mainly meant to inspire and enthuse municipalities to apply child participation more often. An evaluation took place with two adults with little to no experience of child participation. It showed that the information was clearly put and the fan inspired and enthused the readers with the presented examples and possibilities of child participation. Recommendations: The tool that resulted of this project is a way to make municipalities enthused about child participation, but more information and training should be provided before they can actually get busy. It is recommended that the tool is completed with a range of workshops, or a program for setting up and executing child participation. Additionally, the tool is now based on only one example project. For the tool itself this is not necessarily a problem, but more examples should be documented to show in general that child participation works. Lastly, testing the ideas in practice will give additional insights in the results of using child participation, and shows where this method still needs improvement.