Friday, July 15, 2011

Children's natural desire to Do

Children approach their world in a naturally inquisitive manner and when coming across new items they want to find out what they can do with it by involving all of their senses; seeing, smelling, hearing, moving, touching and tasting. At some point as we move into adulthood we depart form this hands-on approach and come to focus mainly on one of the senses - that of seeing, and looks become the highest criteria of beauty.

Canadian-born play designer Barbara Hendricks argues that ‘young children, like early civilisations, value impressions of the world around them and do not concern themselves with the idea or concept of good taste - but with what tastes good, feels good and so forth. They have an innate appreciation of the beautiful, not a learned appreciation. Our culture teaches us another set of rules of beauty - a lecture in good taste’ (2001).

Schools, nurseries and other child care facilities can offer more choice in terms of outdoor play compared with a public playground since not only are these playgrounds supervised by staff, but a variety of loose play equipment can be stored away and brought out to extend play opportunities. Such objects can often be manipulated by children, such as stack and build objects, thereby extending ways of engagement. When involved in designing public playgrounds, great care goes into creating environments that are robust to withstand general wear and tear but also, sadly, to cope with potential vandalism and theft. Loose objects are therefore rarely included in such spaces, which is why I’m arguing that play spaces that are supervised should be equipped with a wide range of items and materials and make these available to children. Play should be child-initiated. The role of the adult should be to provide the space and offer variety, ensure the space is a quality space and is well looked after.

Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Playground

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Wednesday, July 06, 2011

School Playground Design - Access and Integration

Schools are increasingly required to accommodate for a wide range of needs, and a rich outdoor environment that offer a wide range of experiences can be a wonderful learning tool as it provides a wealth of opportunities for children of all ages and abilities. It is however essential that the design of these very important spaces are carefully planned and based on sound horticultural knowledge and a good understanding of children’s diverse needs.

The beauty of the outdoors is that nature is dynamic and forever changing. Nature offers opportunities that cannot be recreated indoors and spending time outdoors in the fresh air is important for our health and for our physical and mental development. Reality is however that cold and wet weather, poor access and poorly laid out gardens and playgrounds prevent us from using the outdoors to its full potential.

Access

To be fully inclusive and to encourage peer interaction, school playgrounds should be accessible to all and integrated to encourage contact between children of different ages and with different levels of ability. Paths should be wide enough to allow plenty of room for wheelchair users and ground surfaces should be even. Alternative walkways provide a sense of mystery and by using a variety of ground surface materials also interesting to explore. For partially sighted people surface materials help with orientation and therefore should be planned to inform users of what they are approaching during their journey.

Choice

Offering choice is important to encourage active decision making. By creating a number of separate areas that have different experiences and challenges to offer within the school playground, children can choose where they feel most comfortable to play. Circular paths that run through a space encourage movement. By starting and ending a path in the same place, users will always get back to where they started, which for some children are an important safety feature. Set off the main walk, alternative routes can be incorporated, creating separate areas each with different sensory experiences on offer.

Way finding

To inform users of which area they are entering, entrances that have clearly recognisable features can be included in a design. These features should not change with the seasons and should all be different to ensure they do not get confused. A piece of art, the sound of wind chimes or the sound of moving water to inform users of where they are are examples that can be used. The use of colour can also be an efficient way to facilitate orientation, for instance, arches can be painted in different colours and placed by each entrance. The chosen colours can then be picked up in the planting within each space in order to create a strong and recognisable colour identity for each area.

Themes

To satisfy a variety of needs and to give structure to an outdoor space, each ‘room’ could have a theme or focus. One of the themes can for example be an area to relax, where there is limited amount of stimuli and the dominating colours are green and white. Another theme could be water, since water has the ability to stimulate so many of our senses. There also needs to be an area where children are exposed to an element of controlled risk and challenge to explore their physical abilities as well as their limitations. A physically active area that offers an environment with uneven surfaces, changes in levels and balancing and climbing opportunities should therefore be accommodated for. Further themes that can be included in a school playground design are wildlife areas, kitchen gardens, tactile exploration, outdoor classrooms and nature trails.

Plants have a wonderful ability to provide a wide range of sensory stimulation in terms of their colour, scent, texture and ability to create sound. Care should be taken to ensure plants are within reach to all. A raised bed system allows for easy access and users to get into close proximity to plants. Seating in a playground must not be forgotten. Places to sit in pairs, small groups or larger groups, provides spots for children to stop and enjoy a view or sensation that they like.

We feel strongly that every child should be entitled to quality outdoor provision. In an age where access to explore the outdoors is limited due to safety concerns, school playgrounds have an important role in exposing children to a wide range of environments.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Special Outdoor Spaces

A multi-sensory garden is a varied outdoor space where children can relax and feel safe, find comfort as well as challenge, explore and investigate and enjoy the company of others whilst benefiting from fresh air and natural light. A sensory garden is not just an outdoor area that has been packed with obvious sensory experiences such as scented plants, tactile surfaces, mirrors etc as these places easily become sterile and uninspiring. No, a true multi-sensory space should be a magical space which nurtures curiosity and appeals to all of our senses and not just the main five. As well as taste, sight, hearing, smell and touch it should also address the sense of heat and absence of heat, balance and body awareness. It needs to be a varied landscape divided into separate spaces with enough space between to prevent sensory overload.

Sensory rich spaces are brought alive when there are plenty of opportunities for children to discover, explore and relax and where challenging elements as well as elements of surprise are incorporated into the landscape. Green environments have a positive therapeutic effect on humans and is believed to reduce stress levels, therefore the use of plants is crucial for a sensory garden to be successful. No man made object offers what plants do with their dynamic and ever-changing qualities.

These special outdoor spaces appeal to all children, and they should be fully accessible and integrated spaces that children of all abilities can enjoy together. The use of specially made adjusted furniture such as wheelchair accessible tables, raised sand and water play facilities add to the play opportunities for children with disabilities. However, what is most important is that there are spaces where children with disabilities can play with other children. For example spaces where children in wheelchairs can lie down and play with others by crawling, rolling or sliding. At no time should specially made play equipment be placed in a separate area away from where other children play.

There are a number of practical issues to consider when designing outdoor spaces for children with disabilities. First of all access. Not only do paths need to be well surfaced and of a certain width, the transition from the inside to the outside should also be as easy as possible for children using wheelchairs or other mobility devices. There should not only be steps that connect different levels, instead changes in level should be avoided or ramped appropriately. Further, children with disabilities often have greater sensitivity to the sun and cold winds, therefore shade and wind protected areas should be incorporated to provide comfortable outdoor places to play.

Although water is an important feature in any garden we believe it is particularly important in a sensory garden as it can stimulate so many of our senses. The cool and wet feel of water can be very stimulating. The sound of water can be very relaxing and visually slow trickling water can have a calming effect. Water can also be played with in many ways. Moving water can be used to ‘ferry’ floating objects where their journeys can be followed with the eye and being able to create sound with your body by splashing water is both fun and rewarding particularly to those with restricted mobility. To further emphasise the sensory qualities incorporating sand, pebbles and grasses can enhance both the experience and the landscape surrounding the water further.

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Monday, June 13, 2011

Designing for Outdoor Play

Canadian born play environment architect Barbara E. Hendricks states in her book Designing for Play that ‘public playgrounds have been part of western cities for a little over one hundred years now and yet as we enter into the twenty first century there is no other aspect of public provision that has changed so little over the past century and is so boringly the same around the world as public playgrounds’ (2001) and poses the question why this is the case.

Focusing mainly on western societies, she discusses aesthetics, and children’s appreciation of aesthetics, and argues that ‘playgrounds for children today ... are seen to have no requirements for aesthetic considerations in most communities - rather it is an issue of providing a minimal facility with the least inconvenience to “adult” i.e. serious interests. After all it is just for children. Design is serious adult business.’ She stresses in her book the importance of taking children and playground design seriously and puts together a strong case arguing children’s right to well designed and spacious play spaces.

Here at Forma Landscapes we take play seriously. Born and raised in Sweden, where children are brought up with a very close relationship with nature and where it is recognised that children need to play with the world around them, we are committed to providing stimulating, exciting and creative outdoor spaces for children to enjoy and explore. We focus on all of the senses and include a wealth of opportunities for children to seek out sensory stimulation through play in our designs.

So what does a well designed play space look like? Does it need to be nice and tidy like the typical play spaces that include Kit, Fence and Carpet (KFC playgrounds) with perfect edging, no loose materials and prescriptive play equipment? Below is an image of an outdoor area at a nursery school in Sweden that I visited not long ago. Does this environment offer more or less play opportunities than the traditional KFC playground we are most used to?

Through my blog posts I will discuss design principles in relation to outdoor play design. I aim to bring current research and developments within the field to your attention and I wish to use this blog as a outdoor play design forum where ideas can be explored and played with.

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Monday, June 06, 2011

An exciting range of outdoor products for children

Forma Landscapes launches its new online shop offering an exciting range of outdoor products for children of all ages and abilities. Our first full length blog post will soon follow.

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