The impact of playground spatial features on children's play and activity forms: An evaluation of contemporary playgrounds' play and social value
Introduction
Many contemporary playgrounds consist of look-alike, isolated pieces of equipment in a monoculture of grass (Herrington & Studtmann, 1998) which have no relation to context. It is not a surprise that they are widely criticized for their limited stimulation and activities (Cohen et al., 1978, Frost, 1992a, Lynch, 1961), for being developmentally inappropriate (Frost and Klein, 1983, Frost et al., 2001), for being predictable and boring (Beckwith, 1998, Beckwith, 2000, Moore, 1989), and for attracting children only when such playgrounds are new (Langendorfer et al., 2008). But there is more – most of today's playgrounds, defined by colorful multi-structures with platforms, steps and slides that are placed on safe rubber surfaces, not only fall short of stimulating a wide spectrum of play types, but also do not act as social places. The basic expectation of a playground, i.e., to create a playful and social environment for children, their families or even the local community, is not met at all or only to a small degree. This may suggest that the concept of the contemporary playground of a “McDonald's model”-type, described by Eric Schlosser as “the most commercial end of product development” (Solomon, 2005 p. 82), is definitely a dead end. It is not a surprise that many researchers have begun to question the whole concept of ‘playground’; especially since most of children's play does not occur on playgrounds (Quigg, Gray, Reeder, Holt, & Waters, 2010). The playground's usefulness is also limited since the sites for them are often chosen without any careful studies of location and context, which causes problems with the playground's accessibility (Veitch, Salmon, & Ball, 2007). As Cunningham and Jones (1999) argue, the playground is a confession of the failure of city planning. Still, it has dominated play spaces in the Western world, thus gaining a strong position in the market and city landscape, which makes any and all research exploring ways of maximizing playground play and social potential necessary. Perhaps we should come back to the old concepts of playgrounds, e.g., gardens for children (Jekyll, 1908), to the idea of a designer's playground from the 1970s, we should look for inspirations in the works of Aldo van Eyck and M. Paul Freiberg (1970), and follow Colin Ward's (1978) suggestion that the whole city should be a play space. As Wortham (1990) suggests, “contemporary play structures can be an important part of a true play environment” (p. 98), but for that to be achieved an in-depth study of the relations between spatial features and children's behavior on playgrounds is needed.
The research presented in this article aims to uncover if the contemporary playground can be a true play and social environment, and how to increase its play and social potential, i.e., its playability and sociability.
The work was guided by the following questions:
- 1)
Is there any relation between selected spatial features and children's behavior at playgrounds?
- 2)
How strong is the influence and is it constant for the playground's site?
- 3)
Can we identify critical features and design solutions that can efficiently enhance the play and social potential of a playground?
In order to find these answers the research focuses on children's behavior at contemporary playgrounds and explores the relation between selected spatial features, the playground's design and children's play patterns in the context of a playground's playability and sociability.
Section snippets
Theory – previous research on the influence of play space on forms of play
The type, quality and diversity of children's play environments directly affect the type, quality and diversity of children's play (Moore, Goltsman, & Iacofano, 1992), as well as influencing children's behavior and manners (Kritchevsky, Proscott, & Walling, 1969). This means that a well-designed and organized playground can provide opportunities for and stimulate a full range of developmental skills (Wardle, 2000), including cooperation and other social interaction (Kraft, 1989). It can also be
Assumptions
The research methodology design begins with a number of initial assumptions.
A subset of spatial features determines the play and social potential (playability and sociability) of contemporary playgrounds, with strength varying according to playground zone (functionally distinguished areas oriented towards various play/activities). Thus, a contemporary playground can be a true play and social environment for children if a specific set of spatial features is used.
The Sociability of a playground
Forms of play by zone type
For each of the observed playgrounds and almost each zone type the dominant forms of play were functional ones (87.1% of all play forms, 69.4% of all for presence; online Appendix B). These varied slightly, depending on the zone type and its characteristics. In the multi-structure and single-structure zones, functional play without objects (running, jumping, climbing, and sliding) was predominant. Children usually engaged in it solitarily or under the supervision of an adult. In open spaces,
Discussion
The research yielded conclusions regarding a number of aspects, e.g., zone type and its potential, features influencing playground sociability and playability, the strength of that relation in the context of zone type, factors determining defunct zones as well as key features increasing the potential of the zone type.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank everyone who helped me in this research. Special thanks go to Prof. Patsy Eubanks-Owens (University of California, Davis) for her guidance and valuable advice, and to prof. Adam M. Szymski (West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin) for supportive energy especially in the difficult period of my life.
Completing this manuscript would have been all the more difficult were it not for the friendship of the other members of the Department of Landscape Design: Magda
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