Aesthetics of Play-spaces 3

Knowledge as code-breaking

Coming back to playgrounds and play-spaces… and spaces for play.

Earlier this week I remember reading something along the lines that a town that has a lot of playgrounds has failed in it’s child-friendliness. It felt like a big poke into my thinking with a generous stir.

I like play-spaces.. and I think the fulfill an important function, especially well-designed spaces that offer freedom to engage in many different kinds of play. But what I like more are spaces for play - where through well-thought through design the space gives permission to play without play being the main focus of the space. Sometimes these happen accidentally rather than intentionally.

I also think that this can be done both inside and outside. That spaces can be playful and give permission for play. And the aesthetic of the space will define what kind of play - from big body play, to stay for a while play, to have a quick jump as you go along play to sit quiet a moment and play and more…

Pathways can do this easily - I remember as a child we invented all sorts of rules as to how to walk on certain paths to get school in different ways - we played our way to school. “Step on a crack and break your back. Step on a line break your spine” - I know there are those where it’s about your mother/father’s back/spine - but that wasn’t how we inherited the game.

Garden walls were there to walk along and balance. So few walls seem to allow for that now, which I am a bit sad about, because it was such a great way to walk home - we quickly learned which walls were OK to walk on.

These are not intentional playful designs. But they can inform how we can design for everyday play in everyday spaces. Small features that give permission, while at the same time are not obvious play features - and in a way that is what makes them so exciting. For children it’s the testing of boundaries and working out how far to push it. And I think this is what we need to design for.

Children are code-breaking society. Play is a vital function of building knowledge to understand how to be in this world of ours in the context/place/situation we find ourselves in.

I don’t think many playgrounds/play-spaces are designing for code-breaking. It feels the opposite that the adults are trying to break the code of play and to then provide items to be played on. I also think that many spaces are viewing play as a product rather than a process. So some places become the dessert playground where it looks amazing but there is little play-nutrition; some focus too much on play being the vehicle for physical movement and staying physically healthy - which is important but I find it entirely disappointing when a playground only seems to focus on this - like one giant obstacle course; others focus on having certain equipment that are randomly placed with little thought about how these equipments interact with each other in that space. I also think that when designing playgrounds/playspaces (whether this be public spaces, or in preschools) that when it comes to the pedagogy part it becomes more scripted and less free. And I think that is because in the mind of the designer/teacher there is a specific learning goal - gravity, sound or whatever and therefore the space becomes about teaching (some even with signs).

But what would a space look like if it was designed for code-breaking? What I mean with code-breaking is that children discover something in their play (or are taught something) that can then be applied in their play (and other circumstances) in multiple ways - a kind of code to understand. A space that children enter and wonder why that happens, can see how their own actions can make changes, and can test things over and over and still be interested.

At the moment there seems to be a big interest in making playground with high features. It’s like the taller the better. And I get it, for many children the code they are breaking is their fear of heights. Tree houses have always existed as a place to perch - not only because of the thrill of the height, but also because it was tucked away from the prying eyes of the adult.

So when I see designs that create gathering spaces at great heights, that also serve as pathways to get to the slide, or a connecting tunnel or something then I feel a play need has been missed - because that nice private perch is no longer private, there is a constant stream of others going by - or that the route gets controlled by a group of children wanting peace and other children don’t dare to use it.

Also once the brain has mastered overcoming the thrill of height then the attraction of that space is no longer the same - and it has few other play uses.

I like lookout towers that are designed for children and adults. The function is purely designed to be high, to hang out (which is something teens are looking for) and can meet this need. Play can happen there - I have seen this happen at the look out tower in Lysekil - not designed for play but was open to play happening. It also attracted a wide range of ages from the preschool to seniors and everything in between. The stairs were manageable for a range of abilities. The two preschoolers I observed were fully engaged in play while their adult sat and let them get on with it. It was a role play that involved moving round the platform and going up and down the stairs. There was enough space for this to happen without disturbing others sat enjoying the view. They were in flow for 30 minutes. Sometimes lookout towers have ladders to get up. They have been much more challenging when with young children, especially coming down for some children. What I find strange is that often the ladder and more scary lookout towers (because the way up and down is a bigger challenge) have been the ones in play-spaces, while the friendlier ones have been designed for all ages to use and enjoy.

Many of the new play-spaces with long slides that have internal climbing structures I find designed in a way that is almost too safe, because they are too hard for my tall, and sadly not very flexible, body to get up. I think spaces need to always be designed with the knowledge that some children will go higher than what they are comfortable with, because they don’t know that until they get there (breaking the code of their own limits and capability) and adults are forced to get up to them to support them down. I would be rich indeed if I was given a dollar for every time I had to climb up equipment to guide a child down, using my own body below them as a safety net. I have no problem with children asking for help… I think this is part of their knowledge building through play. But I am not liking some of the new playground designs that make this much harder for adults to offer the support young children need… and I am talking of preschoolers here.

These images come from an adventure playground in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Here height was built into this structure with multiple ways to move around it... so not just being high, but also exploring, and the ability to easily watch others at play. Multiple ways up and down.

in AnjiPlay in China, the loose parts made it so much easier for the children to the break codes of life to build their own knowledge. They could build their own constructions to test their own abiiities and fears, to build their own role play spaces to test out narratives, build their own constructions to test out scientific ideas... here there was flexibility

also important to think about when designing small houses that are elevated children WILL want to go onto the roof. This is a challenge that seems to be innate in a great many children. So we should be designing for this eventuality - not designing with the rule “don’t go on the roof” - that is BAD designing in my books.

all these spaces are designed for children to get high - some of them I think are more successful with how height can be a part of the play rather than height simply being the experience. I truly think that we should focus on the play, and that it might happen at height... rather than how can we make things high. This is because my observations of children's play is that it doesn't have to be actually particularly high for children to feel the thrill in their play. So I sometimes think these are selling the idea of risky play without actually fully understanding the complexity of risky play - or thrill seeking or adventurous play or however we would like to frame it

This is all I can share in one post…

So to be continued…

any comments/questions?