Water is this sort of uncontrollable force. Rain comes down, there's nothing you can do about it, just, you know, give in to it and enjoy it. There's a real healing, comforting power about nature and being outside.
When you think back over some of your best memories, how many of them took place in an outside space? What we need on a rainy day is an incentive to go outside. And I think I might have just the thing.
Host: Please give a very warm welcome to Hazel Cottle.
(Applause and cheers)
Chris Anderson: Hello, I'm Chris Anderson, head of TED. We believe that ideas change everything. And that anyone in the world, including you, can have an amazing idea. Which is why we've embarked on a search to uncover the best ideas you've never heard of. Now an idea by itself won’t achieve anything. But what if it was presented on a stage and secretly in the audience there were experts and mentors and investors? Then all bets are off.
From TED, this is My Big Idea.
[My Big Idea]
HC: Hello, I'm Hazel Cottle and this is my big idea.
[Somerset, UK]
I'm an occupational therapist and I work for a hospice. Palliative and end-of-life care has become a real sort of passion and interest of mine. One experience that started off for me was that we had a gentleman who was in his last couple of days of life, and his daughters were coming in shifts, spending 24 hours a day with him. We wheeled him down the corridor outside, and as soon as he was outside, his whole being just relaxed. He could feel the breeze on his face. It was just like a magical little sort of 20 minutes in the last two days of him being alive. So yeah, it's just got this ability to make people feel themselves again.
The reason I wanted to give a TED talk, I think, we talk about this idea of mine at home. It's just been, you know, something in our family is like, well, wouldn't it be great if that existed? I'm hoping that there will be enough people who see it and go, "Ah, I could do something with that. I know what's needed." It's just got an inherent kind of joyful aspect to it, I think.
We consider ourselves to be an outdoorsy family. We do some kayaking as a family, go out and walk and cycle. Often, our summer holidays are based around going to mountains, usually in France, and throwing ourselves down hills on bikes. It's nice because you get to use the chairlift to take you up, and then you just have to ride down.
It was so hot, so we'd have to just get in the river, we just have all our cycling stuff on, just ditch the bikes on the bank and climb down into the river and cool off, which was really lovely.
Certainly my children connect with each other much better when they're outside.
The kids just were playing around with the cameras, and they were kind of taking pictures of each other, like, you know, holding the moon as it was going down over the lake. It was just lovely. It was so nice.
Kids, are you ready to go?
Kid: Yeah.
HC: Come on then.
If they're really grumpy, it sort of changes within 30 seconds of being outside. If you push through that grumpiness of, come on, put your coat on, put your wellies on, you know, grumble, grumble. As soon as they get outside, oh, that's it, there's something to look at, there's a leaf to pick up, there's sticks to battle with. The stick becomes a sword or the stick becomes a magic wand or a staff or a spear or something. So there's a sort of endless possibilities of reinventing a stick. There are so many research studies that will show how good it is for you to spend time outdoors. And the positive power on your well-being. The heaviness of life isn't quite so heavy when you're outside.
Heather Elliott: There's a strong relationship between children playing outdoors and child development. Children are climbing into trees and seeing how high they can go and that kind of thing. It's very good for them. They develop their climbing skills, their walking skills, all kinds of areas like that. And also it's good for them emotionally if they begin to enjoy and succeed in what they're trying to do. And using those physical skills ties in with the emotional side of things.
HC: I don't think people do spend enough time out of doors. I think our modern lives, we've made ourselves very comfortable indoors. Existing with the natural environment is just a really powerful health tool, mostly a free health tool. You know, just step outside the door and you're there.
TV: An awful lot of rain. Plenty of blustery showers and persistent rain. Sunshine, not so much of that this week. It’s often going to be cloudy, and it’s going to be turning a bit wetter, too.
Lizzie Kendon: The UK weather is hugely variable from season to season and year to year. In the autumn and the winter, we get some of the really heavy rainfall coming from low-pressure systems that track across the UK. In the summer, we tend to get these very heavy, thundery downpours, but that varies very much depending on where you are. So if you live in northern Scotland, it's more than 200 days a year when it's raining.
HC: The problem is that we want to spend a lot of time outdoors. We know that it’s really good for us. But we’re maybe inhibited by the rain.
HE: Interacting with the elements is hugely important in outdoor play, but I think there’s always been some reluctance on adults’ part to go outside if it's pouring with rain or if it's very wet. Children need to find out for themselves what the weather does, what the different elements do outside. So one day in sunny you won't have a puddle. But if it's rained overnight, you'd probably want to be out there jumping in that puddle to see how the water disperses. If you go on another day and the water is deeper, what happens then? Does it go over the top of your wellies? That kind of thing. Children need to learn in that kind of way.
HC: We’re keeping ourselves inside when we want to be outside, and it's just because of rain falling. So maybe we need to embrace that. Maybe we need to harness that in some way. I don't think our outside spaces are necessarily optimized for the weather that we get in this country. You know, play areas for children, they're sort of fair-weather spaces, really. Maybe we need to just accept, yep, this is a rainy country, this is what we've got to work with. Let's work with it, let's use it and make it central to the reason for being outside.
I think sharing ideas is the best way to progress things and evolve. The idea of getting up on stage and doing a TED Talk is terrifying.
I think things often sound better in my head. There's a fair amount of homework. It's going to be a very early start for me on Wednesday morning. Trying not to fit into a mold of what I think a TED Talk should be like, and just trying to be myself. It's a bit of a test of myself and my nerve. It's about having some confidence in an idea and running with it, and then being open to what comes back. It's quite a novel thing to do, to share something that could go sort of far and wide.
[Two weeks later]
[Brighton]
All of a sudden we're here, landed in Brighton yesterday. And then today is TED Talk day. I am buzzed and tired and energized and excited all at the same time.
CA: It's time for TED.
HC: My fear is that I walk out, and I just lose the power of speech. And I can't in any way impart what I want to impart. But I don't think that will happen. I don't feel like that will happen. I'm excited to hear what other people think about the idea. And other people will go, “Well actually, I've been thinking the same thing and I reckon we can do this and I reckon this would work." So yeah, that's like a whole box that I haven't even opened in my head yet. You know, we'll just get this bit done, get this day done. And then see if the box gets full of stuff to open.
Host: Please give a very warm welcome to Hazel Cottle.
(Applause and cheers)
HC: Picture the last time you felt truly alive. Were you inside, or were you outside? Being outside more of the time every day is just better, isn't it? But what happens when it rains? Our community spaces are often deserted when it's raining. Many's the time that I've got my kids into their waterproofs, taken them to the park, and we’re the only ones there. This is where Puddle Parks come in.
The forecast for the weekend is grim, but you're looking out of the window and you're willing it to rain really hard this time. It starts to, so you're messaging your friends and your family, you're saying, "Do you think this is enough rain for it to be running?" You all decide it is. So you get on your coats, your ponchos, you grab your umbrellas, put your boots on, and you head out to your local Puddle Park. You spent some time jumping up and down in the puddle-collecting paving. You've been playing with some pumps and some crank handles that will move the water around in different ways. And now you're watching as the rain water is being diverted through channels that are flowing down through wonderfully landscaped flowerbeds. You and your friend find Pooh sticks like, as in Winnie the Pooh, just to be clear.
(Laughter)
You set them off at the top for a race. They're flying down, your stick goes left and gets get stuck where somebody's closed the little sluice gate. Your friend's stick goes over a mini waterfall, it goes around some obstacles, narrowly misses a siphon where the rainwater is disappearing underground completely, and it comes out at the bottom to win the race.
You're just about to go for a rematch when you notice something among the plants. Did anyone else see it? It looked like a light. Yes, it was a light. And there's more lights. They’re all over the Puddle Park. And now they’re changing color from red to blue to green to purple. Amazing. And it's raining a bit harder now. And suddenly you're hearing music and sounds coming from different places in the Puddle Park. And actually, because you're there on a completely torrential downpour day, some previously unnoticed things have started moving, and they're powered by hidden hydroelectric motors that are underground.
Part of the magic of a Puddle Park is that the more sophisticated features only operate in heavy rain, so you start anticipating rainy days and wondering if there's enough rain to make the light up, singing, spinning water feature thing run.
I think this could mean that we all started to look forward to rainy days, rather than seeing them as a barrier to getting out and having fun. Puddle Parks needs collaborators. We need science and technology, art, sculpture, engineering to bring sustainable and accessible and innovative Puddle Parks to life for everybody. So that next time it rains, you choose not to stay in. You’d step outside, embrace the weather and start to feel a magical difference.
Thank you.
(Cheers and applause) I've got to sort of digest it now. It was over in a flash. I feel like I am a step closer to actually seeing it. You know, to actually seeing a real Puddle Park, which is really ... It would be so great. It would be so great to see one in real life.
You think, "I think I can do that," but you never quite sure if you'll actually pull it off. I feel like I have pulled it off, so that's good. That's good to know. Put that in the pocket.
[Four weeks later]
[Somerset]
(Phone ringing)
CA: Lovely to see you, Hazel, how are you? HC: I'm really good, thank you. CA: I want to introduce you to someone who I think you'll be interested to meet. He's an amazing architect and a designer, and he's done so many remarkable hotels, award shows, sets on Broadway. He designed the TED Theater in Vancouver, which is an incredible theater. He has a team of more than 200 people working for him in New York and elsewhere in the world, and he has a special passion for playgrounds. And he's seen your talk. I'd like to introduce you to David Rockwell.
HC: Amazing.
[New York, USA]
David Rockwell: Hazel, nice to meet you.
HC: Lovely to meet you.
DR: I hope Chris didn't undersell that in the four decades of us doing stuff, the most meaningful project has been a playground project, which was based on creative play and bringing kids to get out of linear play. So it's so near and dear to my heart. And I was kind of blown away by your video and your idea. It's pretty amazing.
HC: Thank you.
DR: What I was going to suggest is we spend a week working intensely with you.
HC: Right.
DR: And then we work to turn it into a presentation that I believe will help persuade local authorities and other people to understand how important and how significant it can be.
HC: That would be amazing. That would be so valuable. That's so kind.
DR: Playgrounds are one of those things that I think touch us in our most personal, creative place. So I'm glad you got it together to put that idea out in the world.
HC: I don't think you're ever too old for a playground, you know?
DR: No.
HC: No. It's an absolute gift. Just wonderful. Thank you so much.
[Hazel and David's team are currently working together] [on the first Puddle Parks concept] [She hopes to see one in her local village soon ...]
