Designing for Play

Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 2016

Children's outdoor play is fluent and fluctuating, shaped by environmental features and conditions. The article reports on a project where interaction designers and landscape architects work together to fuse their knowledge into working solutions for integrating interactive play in outdoor environments. We report on a schoolyard trial, where interactive play technology was installed as an integral part of a schoolyard environment, and discuss the interplay between technology and the environment that was partly natural forest and partly constructed playground. We highlight in particular the importance of the adaptability of the natural environment, how the combination of interactive technology and natural environment can contribute to the versatility of play activities, and how the interactive technology can both be useful for presenting invitations to play in such adaptable places, and enhance the adaptability for play in otherwise impoverished places.

Design Guide for Playgrounds, 2015

Children, who are the most weak people about sensibility and telling their desires clearly, act differently at every age phases. Because of this, child oriented designs must appeal to children about whole ages and features. Playgrounds are places where children of all ages and features spend their times commonly. But when these playgrounds were observed, that can be seen, playgrounds can not meet children's need and, because of this, they become quitted places. Within this article, child, play and playground concepts have been examined and the parameters of playground design have been classified. The aim of article is revealing the parameters for playgrounds design and offering a guide so that it can give an idea for the new designs.

2014

This report draws on findings from an action research project carried out with an adventure playground (AP) over a six-month period during summer/autumn 2013. The overall intention was to explore the ways in which playwork practitioners at the playground make sense of and give meaning to their practice in designing and maintaining an environment for play. Working collaboratively with members of the play and playwork team at the University of Gloucestershire, adventure playground workers explored current articulations of design intentions and practices drawing on a range of conceptual approaches and tools. This brought a critical and reflective lens to the production of the AP, its everyday rhythms, routines and habits, and the ways in which adults and children co-create play spaces.

2016

The primary focus of this project is the playground as a generator of spaces for recreation, integration, identity expression of people in a group, active creativity and play. This project analyses children’s playgrounds from the following perspective: the playground in different urban development models, the presentation of possible development lines for playscapes, and the relationship that can be established between children’s recreation areas, art and gardens. These spaces are conceived as places for future intergenerational communication, creativity and the creation of identity within the contemporary urban fabric. Their purpose is also to instil children with educational values such as care and respect for the natural environment. Advocates of recreation spaces traditionally visualised playgrounds not only as places of refuge from the risks and perils of urban life, but also as areas that fostered social integration. Play has an educational value that is universally recognised.

2014

Architect, 2018

Ten years ago, I led a study abroad trip to Japan with a dozen architecture students from the University of Michigan. There, we met Shunichi Watanabe, urban planning professor emeritus at the Tokyo University of Science, who gave us a tour of the Shimokitazawa neighborhood in Tokyo. Watanabe, a researcher of community-generated urban planning, took us to Hanegi Playpark to see two adjacent playgrounds with distinctly different designs. The first featured meandering paths bounded by colorfully painted concrete walls and interspersed metal climbing structures. A few children were present, playing a game of catch. Watanabe told us that the playground was designed by an architect and then, with a sly grin, escorted us to the second play area. We smelled it before we saw it. In the more densely forested environment, we noticed a few campfires nearby several haphazardly built wooden shacks and a two-story clubhouse made of logs. A collection of slides, ramps, terraces, ladders, swings, and shelters in varying states of completion was scattered around the 1-acre forest. The bare ground was littered with scrap materials like lumber, rope, metal barrels, cardboard boxes, and plastic tarps. Then we noticed the children.

Play, Recreation, Health and Well Being, 2015

Play in outdoor environment is crucial for children's healthy development and learning because it creates meaningful, enduring environmental connections and increases children's performances. However, the extent of children's engagement in outdoor play and the way they can learn through play is strongly influenced by the physical and social contacts with the outdoor environments. However, the design of children's outdoor environment commonly did not

Children, Youth & Environments, 2018

Returning to Challenges Outlined in General Comment No. 17 This special issue of Children, Youth and Environments has outlined visions to create better play environments, reflected on the fusion of nature in everyday play, considered how play could be better facilitated for particular groups of children, and shown how technology could be used to the advantage of understanding and facilitating play. In conclusion, we reflect on the learning that is pertinent to each of the 11 challenges that were identified in General Comment No. 17. We end by reflecting on the role of experts in improving children’s play.