Playground

Playground, controlled setting for children’s play. This institutionalized environment consists of a planned, enclosed space with play equipment that encourages children’s motor development.

For most of history children merely shared public spaces such as marketplaces with adults; there was no conception of a special area dedicated to children. The “invention” of the playground in general is not attributed to any one person but rather is viewed as a development and combination of the ideas of many thinkers who wrote on education and play—including John Amos Comenius, John Locke, Johann Bernhard Basedow, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and Arnold Gesell. The history of playgrounds in the West can be divided into three periods: traditional, contemporary, and adventure playground design.

The American children’s play movement began in Boston in 1885 with the development of children’s sand gardens modeled on German designs. German-born Marie Zarkrzewska was one of the earliest female physicians in the United States. While in Berlin, Zarkrzewska had noted the simple piles of sand boarded by wooden planks that provided a safe, enclosed space for several children to engage in sand play. Based on her recommendation, the first outdoor children’s playground was opened in Boston in 1885. Soon swings and other play apparatus were added in order to provide for older children. By 1912 recreation buildings for outdoor activities were added, thus fostering the establishment of the recreation profession around the years 1918–22. During this period community resources were also harnessed to support enclosed neighbourhood playgrounds to provide safety from street gangs. This is the era of traditional playground design.

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Architecture: The Built World

The greatest difference between traditional and contemporary playgrounds is the kind of play equipment installed. The earlier, traditional play spaces were called “outdoor gymnasiums” and had exercise apparatus, running tracks, and space for games. In 1928 the National Recreation Association proposed guidelines recommending equipment for children that was appropriate to their age levels—for instance, the association recommended that a preschool playground should have a sandbox, chair swings, a small slide, and a piece of simple low climbing equipment; the elementary school playground should have a horizontal ladder, a balance beam, a giant stride (a large wheel placed at the top of a pole with chains hanging down to permit children to grasp on and swing as the wheel turns), swings, a slide, a horizontal bar, seesaws, and other low climbing equipment. Water play was soon added. These early recommendations have been fairly consistent even to the present day, although materials have changed and safety concerns have increased. Thus, wooden swing seats have been replaced over time with flexible materials such as cloth or plastic, and standard dimensions for apparatus such as sliding boards have narrowed so that only one child at a time can slide down the board. The surface material of the playground has also evolved over time in order to permit safer falls.

The playground era of the 1960s was influenced by the theories of child psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget as well as by modern landscape architects. In this phase of contemporary playground design the psychology of children at play and their stages of development gained in consideration; equipment such as activity panels that were geared toward teaching children a concept through play began to be fostered in playground environments. Denmark is considered the leader in playground development and was the first country to pass laws to ensure that playgrounds were built in public housing projects. This concept has spread throughout much of Europe.

A more recent trend in playground design is the “adventure” playground. Inspired by Scandinavian and British playground reformers, this design attempts to allow for a child-oriented perspective in play; children are, for instance, encouraged in these playgrounds to build their own appropriate play structures. This shift in philosophy can also be seen in the name change of the International Playground Association to the International Association for the Child’s Right to Play.

The organization Playlink (formerly the London Adventure Playground Association) described an adventure playground as an area of between one-third to two and a half acres (one-tenth to one hectare) equipped with materials for building “houses,” cooking in the open, digging holes, gardening, and playing with sand, water, and clay under the supervision of at least two full-time playground leaders who participate in the activities that the children organize themselves. Ideally such playgrounds would also contain an indoor facility with supplies for dramatic play and creative activities such as paints and modeling clay. At some adventure playgrounds in Copenhagen children are encouraged in such activities as constructing huts for rabbits, feeding chickens, and cooking meals over outdoor bonfires.

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