Category: Parks, open space, play spaces

Playgrounds for all children

An empty wooden swing hangs over green grass. Playgrounds for all children.Inclusive play spaces are receiving more attention, but what equipment and design features are most suitable? Research in the US throws some light on this topic. Children, parents, teachers, landscape designers and equipment manufacturers all have a stake in the outcome. This means there are often gaps between what is required, what is available and what gets implemented.

Building Playgrounds for Children of All Abilities looks at legal requirements and provides some useful recommendations. You will need institutional access for a free read. Or you can access the paper via ResearchGate and ask for a free copy. 

Also see Everyone Can Play published by the NSW Government.

Abstract

Schools and communities typically design and build playgrounds with little knowledge that the selected playground equipment meets the needs of children, caregivers, and teachers. In this article, the various categories of playgrounds are discussed and analyzed.

The focus of this discussion includes an overview of the legal requirements and guidelines for school and community playgrounds, a description of prior research highlighting the inadequacies in currently available playgrounds, and an explanation of the trends in playground design over the years.

We relate these topics to the need for universally designed playgrounds and a deeper commitment to designing playgrounds and play equipment that is empirically tested and meets the needs of all children, their teachers, and their families.

By discussing practical examples and research findings to illustrate the gap between playground manufacturers and their play equipment and playground consumers, this paper serves as a meaningful resource for teachers and other stakeholders so they have the knowledge to advocate for their students with disabilities in playground endeavors. Taking recent research findings into account, we provide a vision for playground policy change.  

Designing parks that people use

A young woman and man are walking their dog in an urban park.People use green spaces in cities in different ways depending on their community’s historical experience and cultural standards. But the mere existence of a park does not ensure a community benefits from it. We need to be designing parks that people use.

Access to parks is strongly linked with better health outcomes so it is important to design them in context. In an article for The Conversation, Thaisa Way covers the history of parks, importance of easy access and cultural relevance.  Lots of links to research papers within the article titled: “Parks work for cities, but only if people use them”. And that is a question of design. 

“Let’s go to the park”

An older woman walks on a bitumen path in a park. Two older men are sitting on a seat along the pathway.The design of parks and playgrounds are often considered from the perspective of children and younger adults. But what about older adults? An Australian study by Stephen Gibson looked at this issue and found that the motivations to visit parks differed between older and younger adults.

Natural environment, and park amenity was the strongest predictor of encouraging older adults to visit parks. The recommendation is that park design must be specific to older adults to entice and encourage them to visit. The title of the article in Landscape and Urban Planning is,” “Let’s go to the park.” An investigation of older adults in Australia and their motivations for park visitation”.  You will need institutional access for a free read of the full text, or find a free read on ResearchGate.

Of course, taking the perspective of older adults does not exclude other age groups. Toilets, seating, shade, level footways, and wayfinding are good for everyone. 

From the abstract

What motivates older adults to visit and use parks? Do older adults access parks for different reasons than younger adults? Prior studies determine age influences park visitation, but we know little about why. Older adults are particularly disadvantaged if their preferences, or constraints in frequenting parks are not considered.

This study focuses on fulfillment of autonomy, competence, and related needs in older adults as a precursor to motivation for park visitation. To build deeper understanding the study develops and tests a theoretical model of motivation for park visitation.

Findings indicate that older adults differ from younger adults in the level and type of motivation to visit parks. Specifically, older adults are motivated to revisit parks that fulfill their autonomy needs. Natural environment, a common park amenity, was the strongest predictor of autonomy need fulfillment in older adults, followed by location elements of convenience and community. Results confirm that park design must be specific to older adults to entice visitation.

Danish study

A study from Denmark shows that children like to be surrounded by green. The study used satellite data to show a link between growing up near green space and issues with mental health in adulthood. They found that children under 10 years who had greater access to green space may grow up to be happier adults.

Data was correlated between the child’s proximity to green space during childhood and that same person’s mental health later in life. The more green space they had access to, the less likely they were to have mental health issues later.

The title of this interesting article is “Kids surrounded by greenery may grow up to be happier adults“.  The study was conducted by researchers at Aarhus University. 

Playgrounds and mental health

Four children are in an open space with buildings in the background. They are jumping in the air and holding hands .Access to play spaces can improve mental well-being as children grow up according to an article by Alice Covatta. She argues that there is a connection between lack of play and the rise of mental health conditions.

The way we design our urban areas has an impact on play in outdoor locations and this in turn either encourages or discourages play. The article expands on these concepts and uses case studies to highlight the issues and the solutions and introduce play as sustainable design. The article comes from the latest edition of Urban Design and Mental Health, which has several interesting articles.

NSW Government has published a guide to taking a universal design approach to play spaces, Everyone Can Play.