Adventure playground

An adventure playground is a specific type of playground for children. Adventure playgrounds can take many forms, ranging from "natural playgrounds" to "junk playgrounds", and are typically defined by an ethos of unrestricted play, the presence of playworkers (or "wardens"), and the absence of adult-manufactured or rigid play-structures. Adventure playgrounds are frequently defined in contrast to playing fields, contemporary-design playgrounds made by adult architects, and traditional-equipment play areas containing adult-made rigid play-structures like swings, slides, seesaws, and climbing bars.

History

Harry Shier, in Adventure Playgrounds: An Introduction (1984), defines an adventure playground this way:

The first planned playground of this type, the Emdrup Junk Playground, opened in Emdrup, Denmark, in 1943. In 1948, an adventure playground opened in Camberwell, England. The term "junk playground" is a calque from the Danish term skrammellegeplads. Early examples of adventure playgrounds in the UK were known as "junk playgrounds", "waste material playgrounds", or "bomb-site adventure playgrounds". The term "adventure playground" was first adopted in the United Kingdom to describe waste material playgrounds "in an effort to make the ‘junk’ playground concept more palatable to local authorities".

The architect Simon Nicholson numbered among the advantages of the adventure playground, "the relationship between experiment and play, community involvement, the catalytic value of play leaders, and indeed the whole concept of a free society in miniature.'" Essential in this for Nicholson was the concept of 'loose parts': "In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it." In a playground context loose parts would include:

  • natural resources – such as straw, mud and pine cones
  • building materials and tools – planks, nails, hammers
  • scrap materials – old tyres, off-cuts of guttering
  • bark which can be both safe playground surfacing and a loose part
  • and, most essentially, random found objects.

Denmark

The first junk playgrounds were based on the ideas of Carl Theodor Sørensen, a Danish landscape architect, who noticed that children preferred to play everywhere but in the playgrounds that he designed. In 1931, inspired by the sight of children playing in a construction site, he imagined "A junk playground in which children could create and shape, dream and imagine a reality". His aim was to provide children living in cities the same opportunities for play that were enjoyed by children living in rural areas. The first adventure playground was set up by a Workers Cooperative Housing Association in Emdrup, Denmark, during the German occupation of the 1940s. The playground at Emdrup grew out of the spirit of resistance to Nazi occupation and parents' fears that "their children's play might be mistaken for acts of sabotage by soldiers". Play advocates sometimes emphasize the importance of adventure playgrounds for children of color in the United States, where policing "can feel like a kind of occupation".

United Kingdom

Marjory Allen, an English landscape architect and child welfare advocate, visited and subsequently wrote a widely-read article about the Emdrup Adventure playground titled Why Not Use Our Bomb Sites Like This? and published in the Picture Post in 1946. Marjory Allen's article is often credited with the introduction into the UK of "the idea of transforming bomb sites into 'junk playgrounds', but historians of the Adventure playground movement have pointed to the role played by other experiments carried out by youth workers in the UK. For example, "Marie Paneth, an art therapist heavily influenced by Freud, independently developed the concept of permissive play as a tool for ameliorating childhood aggression in her work running a blitz-era play centre in London although not specifically incorporating the elements of a Junk/Adventure playground pointing to her role in the history of UK specific Playwork development."

List of adventure playgrounds

To date, there are approximately 1,000 adventure playgrounds in Europe, most of them in England, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland. Japan also has a significant number of adventure playgrounds.

The Americas

Canada
  • TELUS Spark, in Calgary, Alberta has a Junkyard Playground open in the summer months.
  • The city of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, piloted a mobile adventure playground in five city parks during the summer of 2016.
  • Toronto Ontario hosted an Adventure Playground from 1974 until the mid-1980s. It was a part of the revitalization of the waterfront called Harbourfront Centre.
  • The City of Coquitlam in British Columbia created an Adventure Playground in the summer of 2018 as a pilot project.
United States

Asia

Japan
  • The Setagaya Play Park or "Junk Playground" in Hanegi Park in Setagaya ward, Tokyo, Japan.
  • Children’s Dream Park 川崎市子ども夢パーク (or "Yume Park") in Shimosakunobe, Kawasaki Takatsu Ward, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

Australia

Australian Capital Territory:

  • POD Playground at the National Arboretum. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
  • Ridgeline Park Playground.Denman Prospect, Australian Capital Territory.
  • Ruth Park Playground. Coombs, Australian Capital Territory.

New South Wales:

  • Bungendore Park. Bungendore, New South Wales.
  • Carberry Park Adventure Playground. Gundagai, New South Wales.
  • The Adventure Playground Jubilee Park. Cootamundra, New South Wales.

Northern Territory

  • Jingili Water Gardens Playground, Darwin, Northern Territory.
  • Adventure Play Park. Katherine, Northern Territory.

Queensland

  • Flagstone Adventure Playground and Skate Park. Flagstone, Queensland.
  • Hinterland Adventure Playground. Cooroy, Queensland.
  • The Jungle Adventure Play. Tingalpa, Queensland.
  • Hervey Bay Adventure Playground. Pialba, Queensland.

South Australia

Tasmania

  • Kingston Park Playground. Hobart, Tasmania.

Riverbend Park. Launceston, Tasmania.

Victoria

  • Hays Paddock playground, Kew East, Victoria.
  • KidsTown Adventure Playground. Shepparton, Victoria.
  • Lake Pertobe Adventure Playground. Warrnambool, Victoria.
  • The Venny, Kensington Adventure Playground. Kensington, Victoria.
  • Community Bank® Adventure Playground Hadfield Park. Wallan, Victoria.

Western Australia

Europe

Denmark

Denmark has several adventure playgrounds, now known as Byggelegeplads (Building-playground) and formerly as Skrammellegeplads (Junk-playground). From the first site in Emdrup, the idea spread across the country and at the height of the popularity in the 1960s, there were about 100 adventure playgrounds in the country. Present active adventure playgrounds in Denmark includes:

  • Skrammellegepladsen in Emdrup, Copenhagen.
  • Bredegrund Byggelegeplads on Amager, Copenhagen.
  • Remiseparken, on Amager next to Bredegrund.
  • Regnbuen in Hvidovre a suburb of Copenhagen.
  • Rødovre Byggelegeplads in Rødovre a suburb of Copenhagen.
  • Byggelegepladsen Broparken, Rødovre.
  • Byggelegepladsen Rønneholm, Rødovre.
  • Højkjær Byggelegeplads in Brøndby a suburb of Copenhagen.
  • Skolemarken in Aarhus.
  • Søndergård in Lystrup a suburb of Aarhus.
Italy
Germany
  • Abenteuerspielplätze und Kinderbauernhöfe in Berlin, or AKiB for short, is a federation of adventure playgrounds and children's farms in Berlin, Germany
Sweden
  • St Hans bygglekplats in Lund
  • Borgarparkens bygglekplats in Lund
  • Klostergårdens bygglekplats in Lund
Switzerland
  • Robi-Spiel Aktionen—An organization of adventure playgrounds in Basel, Switzerland
United Kingdom

Literature

Academic
  • BDJA: Adventure playgrounds and city farms in Europe and what they contribute to sustainable urban development, a study from Germany
  • Kotliar I.A. and Sokolova M.V. (2014). "Adventure Playground as an Example of the Child's Right to Play". Psychological Science and Education Psyedu.ru. 6 (no.2) (2): 81–90. doi:10.17759/psyedu.2014060207.
  • Leichter-Saxby, Morgan (2007) Constructing the “Natural” Child: The Materiality of Play, Power and Subversion at Evergreen Adventure Playground. M.A. thesis, University of London. Retrieved 22 January 2017.
  • Sutton, Lia (2005): Kinderparadijs (Children's Paradise): Advancing the Adventure Playground Movement, a student's thesis (Hampshire College, Massachusetts)
  • Wilson, Reilly Bergin (2014) Who Owns the Playground: Space and Power at Lollard Adventure Playground (1954–1961). M.A. thesis, University of Leeds.
  • Ben Highmore, Adventures in Lollard Street: An Experimental London Playground, 1955–60, History Workshop Journal, Volume 97, Spring 2024, Pages 174–195, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbae001

Film

Arts and Theatre

See also

Notes

References

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Uses material from the Wikipedia article Adventure playground, released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.