THE AIM IS TO STUDY CHILDRENS PLAY SPACES IN THE RESIDENTIAL CONTEXT

CONTENTS
METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
PLAY
I. PLAY SPACES PLAY SPACES
BENEFITS IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

NEED FOR PLAY SPACES BENEFITS OF PLAY

Language Benefits
Physical Benefits
II. FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED III. ELEMENTS OF CHILDREN’S Emotional Benefits
PLAY SPACES Social Benefits
 USERS – CHILDREN’S
BEHAVIOUR Cognitive benefits
 SURFACES
SPACES WHERE NEED FOR PLAY SPACES
 SOFTSCAPE
CHILDREN PLAY Play spaces in the past and present
 SHADING
CHILDREN‘S PLAY --
Need for play spaces
ACTIVITIES/TYPES  FENCES, ENCLOSURES
 DIMENSIONS AND CLEARANCES
 SPATIAL QUALITIES USERS – CHILDREN’S BEHAVIOURAL STUDY
 TYPES-
 STANDARDS OF CHILDREN’S INTERACTION WITH THE
PROVISION OF OPEN WATER PLAY OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENT
SPACES FOR PLAY SAND PLAY SPACES WHERE CHILDREN PLAY
 ISSUES OF RISK AND Play in the home garden
SAFETY Play in the streets near the home
CASE STUDIES- ANALYSIS OF
 BARRIER FREE SPACES ABOVE FACTORS AND Play in other parts of the neighbourhood
ELEMENTS THROUGH CASE
Play in parks
STUDIES
Play in designated play spaces
INFERENCES
CHILDREN‘S PLAY -- ACTIVITIES/TYPES
GUIDELINES
Active play
1V. CONCLUSION Passive play
CHILDREN-AGE WISE CLASSIFICATION

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 INTRODUCTIO
PLAY N
Play is freely chosen, personally directed, Physical Benefits Language Benefits
intrinsically motivated behaviour that
 Motor skills development  Language
actively engages the child
 Movement skills  Communication
 Fitness, endurance  Verbal judgement
 Exploration and response: Through play  Sounds, gestures
children explore social, material and imaginary
worlds and their relationship with them, elaborating
all the while a flexible range of responses to the Cognitive Benefits
challenges they encounter.
 Thinking
 By playing, children learn and develop as  Solving problems

individuals, and as members of the  creativity

BENEFITS Emotional
community OF PLAY Benefits
Social Benefits  Feeling good about being able
to perform
 The impulse to play comes from within the  Social interaction
 Self esteem
child.  Respect for others
 Independence

These benefits bring out the importance of play for children

PLAY SPACES
IMPORTANCE OF PLAY
Play spaces, in simple terms, are
spaces where children play

A play space comprises of a

number of play opportunities.

Play opportunities can take the form of manufactured equipment,

naturally occurring opportunities within the landscape, or
opportunities for interaction with others.

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 NEED FOR PLAY
THE PAST….. SPACES
 The world once offered thousands of delights of
 Children used to have access to the world at
free play to children.
large, fields, forests, streams and yards
Children could play, explore and interact with the and other open spaces of suburbia and the
natural world with little or no restriction or rural countryside.
supervision.

THE PRESENT SCENARIO…

 Space constraints Safety concerns Play equipment

Limiting outdoor playgrounds to
 With urbanisation the Parents are afraid for their children's gross motor activities and
amount of free open space safety when they leave the house alone manufactured equipment
has decreased

Some working falls way short of the potential of

For many children, their
neighborhood, apartment complex stay indoors
or house has no outdoor play
spaces.
families can't outdoor areas to be rich play and
supervise their learning environments for children
children after
school,
Most Play spaces today are usually
concrete areas with gross motor play
giving rise to latchkey children who
equipment such as swings, jungle gyms
and slides

THE NEED It is a well accepted principal in early childhood education This is hindered in play spaces with play equipment alone
FOR that children learn best through free play and discovery.
Thus, there is a need for quality outdoor spaces for children
CHILDREN’S
PLAY SPACES

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C H I LD R E N ’S I N T E RAC T I O N W I T H T H E O U T D O O R E N V I R O N M E N T
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Research studies consistently show that children have a strong preference Children's Experience with the Natural World

to play outdoors in natural landscapes, and that parents generally support

Children's outdoor play is different from time spent indoors.
this kind of play.
 The sensory experiences are different, and different standards of play apply.
 Children have greater freedom not only to run and shout, but also to interact
Qualities of natural environment that attract children with and manipulate the environment.

Natural outdoor environments have three qualities that are unique and appealing
to children as play environments - Children’s perception of the environment
Children experience the natural environment differently than adults.
 Adults typically see nature as background for what they are doing.
diversity uniqueness timelessness
As a stimulator for
Children experience nature, not as background for
their unending events
diversity – the fact that each space is the landscapes, trees, events, but rather as a stimulator
colours, textures, different and has a unique rivers described in
sound, smell etc character stories and myths still As an experience
exist today The world of nature is not a scene or even a landscape
Nature for the child is sheer sensory experience.

Children judge the natural setting not by its

aesthetics, but rather by how they can interact with
the environment.

Children have a unique, direct and experiential way of

knowing the natural world as a place of beauty,
mystery and wonder

Children's special affinity for the natural environment is connected to the child's
development and his or her way of knowing.

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Children’s interaction with the environment:

Importance:

Natural elements provide for open-ended play that emphasize unstructured
openness, diversity
creative exploration with diverse materials.
The high levels of complexity and variety nature offers invites longer and
more complex play.
Two new disciplines, eco-psychology and evolutionary
psychology, are now suggesting that humans are
genetically programmed by evolution with an
affinity for the natural outdoors – called biophilia

Because of their interactive properties, plants stimulate discovery,  if this is not given
exploration opportunities to be
dramatic pretend play, and imagination.
exercised during the
Plants speak to all of the senses, so it's not surprising that children are early years of life, the
opposite, biophobia, an
closely attuned to environments with vegetation. Plants, in a pleasant
aversion to nature,
environment with a mix of sun, shade, color, texture, fragrance, and may develop.
softness of enclosure also encourage a sense of peacefulness.
 Biophobia is also manifest in the tendency to regard
manipulation Plants, together with soil, sand, and water, provide settings that can be
nature as nothing more than a disposable resource.
manipulated. Eg – building sand castles, trenches etc

All the manufactured equipment and all the indoor instructional materials produced by the best educators in the
world cannot substitute for the primary experience of hands-on engagement with nature.

They cannot replace the sensory moment where a child's attention is captured by the phenomena and materials of
nature: the dappled sparkle of sunlight through leaves, the sound and motion of plants in the wind, the sight of
butterflies or a colony of ants, the imaginative worlds of a square yard of dirt or sand, the endless sensory
experience of water,etc.

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S PA C E S W H E R E C H I L D R E N P LAY STUDY

 Sites used by children are often small, informal sites lacking in public open  Most younger children tend to play around
space designations. their homes where they are most likely to feel
secure and comfortable.
Factors age
influencing experiences  As they grow older the distances children go
where
children interests away from home to play begin to vary more
play widely.
influences
the equipment and resources available to them
 Whilst some children continue to choose to
their parents’ feelings about their safety and security;
play indoors or near their homes, others spend
much of their time playing out, exploring and
the area and surroundings in which they live; the
moving about. They tend to seek out their
accessibility of the open spaces they might want to use
friends, finding places where they and their
friends can be together
the variety and attractiveness of potential play places

 As they grow up and begin to feel more independent, playing further

away from their homes and using the wider neighbourhood as their
outdoor play space is a vital part of their developing independence and
self-confidence.

If children are not provided with the sorts of play spaces and opportunities
they want they will either miss out on these important developmental
opportunities or will seek them elsewhere, often in places felt by adults to
be inappropriate.

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S PA C E S W H E R E C H I L D R E N P LAY STUDY

Play in the garden Play in other parts of the neighbourhood

Where they have them children do use their gardens to play in

However, if they are keen to play
with or meet their friends the
garden is not always the best
location.
Although the area near their homes is one of
the main play places for many children, these
spaces have frequently been impoverished by
the encroachment of traffic and development

Children frequently play in their

front garden, rather than at the Children also play on areas of land that they find
back, so they can see their friends interesting and exciting but which are not really
passing and make contact with there as play places
them.

Play in the streets near home

Waste-land, quarries, allotments, building sites and reservoirs all offer
Children have always played in the children exciting and challenging outdoor play opportunities.
streets and roads outside or near
their homes, especially in dead-end If there is no-where else as interesting for them to go, they will play in these
streets and where there is less traffic places.

Other neighbourhood places where children play, and which help meet their
This is not always their preferred play
developmental needs, include natural features such as rivers, fields, hedges
space
and woodlands, school grounds that are open to the public, road side edges
and the edges of common ground, sports fields, small parks and areas which
are being made ready for reclamation and redevelopment

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C H I L D R E N ‘ S P L A Y -- A C T I V I T I E S / T Y P E S
Children’ play can be broadly classified as ACTIVE AND
PASSIVE play.
Active recreation involves being engaged in
activities and requires suitable sites and
facilities to permit activities to occur.
Active recreation is generally associated with
specific facilities such as swimming pools,
tennis courts, and baseball fields.
Active recreation can occur individually or as
a group activity.
Structural facilities are usually
required to permit the active
recreational use to occur.
Passive recreation requires the least
amount of facilities or site preparation.
Natural and semi-natural settings
accommodate most passive recreational
activities.
Few structural facilities, if any, are required for passive
recreational activities.
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BEHAVIOURAL
STUDY
Active and passive play can be classified into the
following types
Symbolic play
Play which allows control, gradual exploration and increased
understanding, without the risk of being out of one's depth. For
example using a piece of wood to symbolise a person,
Rough and tumble play
Close encounter play which is less to do with fighting and more to
do with touching, tickling, gauging relative strength, discovering
physical flexibility and the exhilaration of display. For example
playful fighting, wrestling and chasing where the children involved
are obviously unhurt
Socio-dramatic play
The enactment of real and potential experiences of an intense personal,
social, domestic or interpersonal nature. For example playing at house,
going to the shops, being mothers and fathers, organising a meal
Creative play
Play which allows a new response, the transformation of
information, with an element of surprise. For example
enjoying creation with a range of materials and tools for its
own sake.
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Imaginative play
Communication play
Play where the conventional rules, which
Play using words, nuances or
govern the physical world, do not apply. For
gestures. example mime, jokes,
example imagining you are, or pretending to be,
play acting, singing, debate,
a tree or ship, or patting a dog which isn't there.
poetry.

Dramatic play Locomotor play

Play which dramatizes events in which the Movement in any and every direction for its own
child is not a direct participator. sake. For example chase, tag, hide and seek, tree
presentation of a TV show, an event on the climbing.
Mastery play
street, a religious or festive event
Control of the physical and affective
ingredients of the environments. For
Exploratory play example digging holes, changing the course of
Play to assess factual information streams, constructing shelters, building fires.
consisting of manipulative behaviours such Object play
as handling, throwing, banging or mouthing
Play which uses infinite and interesting
objects. example stacking bricks.
sequences of hand-eye manipulations and
movements. For example examination and novel
Fantasy play use of any object e.g. cloth, paintbrush, cup.
Play, which rearranges the world in the Role play
child's way, a way which is unlikely to Play exploring ways of being, although not normally of
occur. For example playing at being a pilot an intense personal, social, domestic or interpersonal
flying around the world or the owner of an nature. For example brushing with a broom, dialling with
expensive car. a telephone, driving a car.

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C H I L D R E N - A G E W I S E C LA S S I F I C AT I O N STUDY
Children’s physical capabilities, interests and play behaviour change with age. The greatest value will be derived from play opportunities which recognise appropriate
skill levels and developmental milestones. Below is a brief outline of the play preferences and some design implications which relate to each age category.

Toddler - under 3 years Junior - 3 to 5 years

Characteristics Characteristics
This group enjoy the sensory experiences of play in sand, mud, water and This category are becoming agile climbers and are developing good balance and
dirt and the manipulation of loose elements from the surroundings such as coordination.
leaves. Their language skills are developing, therefore enabling more social interaction.
They experiment intensely within their physical ability and receive
great benefit from exposure to a variety of stimuli.
Activities
Activities Play spaces which allow for group activities such as cubbies, boats and trains are
They enjoy small scale, physical activities such as stepping, climbing, therefore popular.
running, swinging, rolling, spinning, rocking, pushing, pulling, moving Imaginative play and pretending are popular and as such so are components which
under and over and activities with cause-and-effect experiences. facilitate role play

T he use of ride-on and small wheeled toys along paths is popular.
Children of this age group will only engage in activities that they can
see, therefore activities need to be located in clear sight lines.
Special considerations
Under three’s may not be able to perceive the implications of their
behaviour, therefore hazards need to be predicted and provided for
They will enjoy a range of physical challenges such as swinging, rocking, climbing,
balancing and spinning.
They enjoy being able to manipulate elements within their environment such as sand,
water, leaves etc. Places in which to play with these loose materials should be located
away from the main traffic areas, so that the activities are not disturbed by more active
play.
Open grassed areas for active play such as ball play, running and rolling are
valuable.

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Intermediate - 5 to 7 years Senior - 8 to 12 Years
Characteristics Characteristics
This group is becoming very coordinated and seeks more physical challenge. This age group is becoming more independent and may be beginning
These children enjoy testing themselves physically. to attend play spaces with friends and without adult supervision.
Physical motion such as spinning, swinging, rocking, climbing and
gliding
Activities
Imagination and role play is still popular amongst the 5 to 7’s.
This age group will develop complex play incorporating more than one opportunity Activities
within the space, therefore careful consideration needs to be given to arrangement and
Chasing and challenging and more boisterous games are popular.
placement of opportunities.
Open areas for active play are valuable.
They enjoy taking part in construction and manipulation activities such as sand
play.
The upper end of this age group will also enjoy watching others
They will venture into the park and interact with the wider environment much more participate.
than younger children, therefore opportunities within the wider area will be of value. Vantage points such as a low wall, mound or grouped seating
This could be as simple as interesting planting, opportunities for balancing, places to situated around hard courts, BMX or skate facilities will facilitate
hide and trees to climb. this.
Open grassed areas are valuable active play areas.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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