Handcrafted Playgrounds by Paul Friedberg now available through Playscapes!

Also in the spirit of encouraging you to make your own playscapes, I'm pleased to announce the second title in my effort to make vintage playground classics available again...Paul Friedberg's Handcrafted Playgrounds from 1975.  Its best description is contained in the book's own foreward:

"Handcrafted Playgrounds is a sketchbook of designs based on two very simple premises: anyone can build a playground, and the actual process of building it can be as important as the finished product. 

It gives the builders (who should certainly include the children for whom it is planned) a chance to shape their environment, to create something to answer their specific needs. 

All settings, urban, suburban, and rural, are rich in natural and man-made materials suitable for play.  Every child, wherever he or she lives and whatever space is available, can have an exciting playground. All it takes is a little imagination."

Paul (see an online bio at the Cultural Landscape Foundation) is best known in playgrounds for his innovative 1970s installations in New York City, in which he utilized what were then completely new forms for play:   massive timber constructs, concrete forts that resembled ancient pyramids, and vest-pocket play spaces in trash-strewn vacant lots before temporary parklets were cool.    (See a 2007 article by Deborah Bishop in dwell magazine for photos of Friedberg's 1970s work, from which the three photos below are taken.)  UPDATE:  Paul has let me know that the last two images are actually the work of Richard Dattner...apologies for the misidentification, but don't worry,  Dattner's own book Design for Play will be released on Playscapes soon!

Friedberg was one of first to realize the ideas embodied in the new word 'playscape' as discrete from 'playground':  a fully three-dimensional landscape space in which purpose-designed components worked together to provide an integrated play experience.

This book reflects that, offering build-it-yourself plans for everything from bridges to benches, spring toys to sprinklers, that can be put together to create a comprehensive play area.   Most are  made from timber, some from tires or other recycled materials like spools and water tanks. 


Handcrafted Playgrounds is currently selling for over $100 on amazon, but now you can get a digital copy through playscapes for just $6!

Please remember that this book is still under copyright protection.  Once you've downloaded the file it is yours, just like a physical book is, to print or loan if you wish but not to copy and hand out.

I've purchased publication rights and must also pay royalties; your respect for the time and expense of the original copyright holder as well as my own is very much appreciated. (If you need to convert the pdf to other ebook formats like epub or mobi, try Calibre, which is a free download).

Purchase Handcrafted Playgrounds digital download for $6 USD via Paypal

Playgrounds Designed with Bullies in Mind

The playground bully is a classic villain in children's lives and literature alike.   Playgrounds don't create bullies, of course, but could design adjustments help prevent acts of bullying?

I recently came across a great vintage document by Gary Moore, Uriel Cohen, Jeffrey Oertel, and Lani van Ryzin of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, entitled Designing Environments for Handicapped Children:  a design guide and case study, published by the Educational Facilities Laboratory in 1979.

Its advice on play spaces for handicapped children is likely dated now, and in any case I am no expert in that field, though it should be noted that the work is replete with remarks on the importance of natural elements and the need for loose parts, lesson we still haven't learned.

But I was most intrigued by its discussion of "Retreats and Breakaway Points" (p. 68 of the doc, if you're following along).

'Retreats' are places that individuals or small groups can be away from other groups.  As the authors note, the placement of these areas is critical; they should be located out of the flow of, but still connected to, the general space of the playground, much like a nook or window seat in an interior space.  This allows a child to withdraw without having to completely cede the playground territory.

I'll add to the authors' analysis the further requirement that a retreat should be an attractive designed space in its own right.  A mere bench doesn't qualify.  In this way, a child who needs to utilize the retreat isn't surrendering their own enjoyment or involvement.  They're just moving to another attractive, though less active, part of the playscape.

A 'Breakaway Point' provides a face-saving exit from an 'unfavorable situation'.  Though the context of the authors is that of a physical challenge that a child might not be able to master, the idea is also relevant to the unfavorable presence of a bully.   Providing breakaway points also promotes increased exploration of the playground space by reducing the fear of an upcoming challenge.

The inclusion of these design features has no downside; even if they didn't reduce the potential for bullying they would be sensitive and attractive additions to any playscape.  As a quieter child myself, I usually hung out on the concrete steps of the school away from the vigorous play.  I would have welcomed a more inviting retreat. And having once felt trapped by a big kid on the climbing equipment, I just stayed away. 

 

The entire document is available online; it's definitely for the serious playgrounder but is full of vintage yet still relevant thoughts.  Highly recommended for your further reading!

EnTYREly Fun Playgrounds, James Jolley

Post Options

Tires are generally a locally available material in developing countries, and are a key material for structures like those by GoPlay and Basurama.  They're also often a prominent feature in adventure playgrounds, which share a commitment to low-cost and recycled components.  Friend and playground advocate Tim Gill reminded me about the amazing manual for building tire structures by the late James Jolley, which is online in its entirety in memory of its author's commitment to children's environments.

Full instructions for every imaginable form of tire structure as well as some constructs using cable spools and barrels, too!  Delightful.  In my backyard growing up, we had a traditional swingset along with a big dirt hill (my mom asked the workers for a dumptruck of dirt when they were building the road), a barrel, an enormous tractor tire and a cable spool...hours of fun, especially before the trees were tall enough to climb.

In keeping with my line of thought lately about playground rubrics, here is how Jolley divided the types of playground functions provided by his designs:

1. Climbing
2. Swings
3. Sand and water play
4. Dramatic play
5. Landscaping, retaining walls etc.
6. Fantasy
7. Loose or movable constructive
8. Quiet
9. Movement equipment
10. Group
11. Solitary

A tire dragon to Jolley's design by Learning Structures in New Hampshire

More rubrics...Design for Play!

Another helpful playground rubric is the set of ten design principals offered by the organization Play England in their publication "Design for Play: A guide to creating successful play spaces", by Aileen Shackell, Nicola Butler, Phil Doyle, and David Ball.

Successful Play Spaces:

1. are 'bespoke'

2. are well-located

3. make use of natural elements

4. provide a wide range of play opportunities

5. are accessible to both disabled and non-disabled children

6. meet community needs

7. allow children of different ages to play together

8. build in opportunities to experience risk and challenge

9. are sustainable and appropriately maintained

10. allow for change and evolution

The Design for Play document illustrates each design principle with further explanation and illustrative photos...many of natural playgrounds recently constructed in the UK, as excerpted here.  A must read!

Patterns of Play - a playground rubric?

The National Institute for Play, a U.S. based non-profit "committed to bringing the unrealized knowledge, practices and benefits of play into public life", provides a useful summary for playground types:  seven elemental behavior forms that it terms "patterns of play".

Attunement play
Body Play & Movement
Object Play
Social Play
Imaginative and pretend play
Storytelling-Narrative play
Transformative-Integrative and Creative play

All of the patterns have short summaries and a list of resources for further reading.

Since beginning this blog I've often puzzled over how to evaluate a playground;  not strictly as 'good' or 'bad', but as effective.  The play is the thing, and the playscape just an enabler...does it provide the space in which all of these play patterns can occur?  Does it facilitate not just presence, but engagement in these forms?  I like the patterns as at least the beginning of some sort of rubric, not because I think the intangible experience of a playground can be captured in a set of numbers but because it's always good to have a way of organizing ones thoughts...this seems a useful guide for discussions about the design of new playgrounds, and new ways of utilizing existing ones.

Natural settings, of course, provide space for all sorts of play without half trying and understanding how they do so is worthy of serious study by those who presume to improve...

I'll be thinking more about this, and hope you will too.

[The lyrical at-play images accompanying this post are by gardener and play observer Paolo Tasini....apologies for taking so long to feature them, Paolo!]

Through London by Playground - Elm Village, Theories Landscapes, 2009

When lately in London, I had the pleasure of being taken round some of its playscapes by playground advocate Tim Gill, and will be blogging about them over the next few weeks. Thanks to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the entire text of Tim's book "No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society" is available for download at their website.

It gives specific attention to children's play and spaces designed for play, and Tim has been instrumental in moving the conversation for new playgrounds in London from a discussion of risk alone to a proper consideration of risk AND benefits as applied to playgrounds.

The issue of fear and risk couldn't have been more evident than at our visit to Elm Village, a pocket park on a housing estate in Camden, to see an installation then but a few weeks old by London-based Theories Landscapes. Just as we were admiring the playscape, we were approached by a woman from the estate who was not only displeased with it, but actively upset about her perception of its 'dangers'.

Soon, we were at the center of a small group with aggressive complaints:

The climbing structure is dangerous. It's too high. You can fall off of it. You can bump your head from underneath. You can fall down on the hill. Kids on top can see into the ground-floor apartment windows. Maybe its ok for older kids but not for younger kids and the big kids will take over the space and be bullies. The sticks on the bushes are sharp and might poke a child in the eye. The kids might enjoy it for a while but they will soon get bored. One of the entrances to the playspace is through the parking lot and someone might get run over. It's ugly.

As we talked however, the attitude of the women softened considerably. They began to acknowledge that the playground was innovative and even attractive, though they still felt that it was somehow unsafe.

It became clear that the problem was largely one of expectations: the installation differed so dramatically from what they had expected; from what they thought a playground, and in particular a 'safe' playground, should look like. Having only experienced conventional commercial equipment installed on pancake flat ground, it had become their standard.

It reminded me that communication becomes extra important when trying to do something new or innovative. The residents acknowledged that they hadn't gone to the planning meetings held at the estate, but still insisted that the playscape wasn't what they 'thought' they were getting.

While it might not have allayed all of their concerns, some simple signage explaining the playground and its goals would have helped. Just a little information about how the bushes and the timbers were important natural elements, that the apple trees on the trellis (along the yellow arches in the pictures) would shield the windows of the ground floor apartments as they grew, and that the incorporation of the hills and the height of the climbers was in line with research about how children needed to be challenged as they played, could have at least helped the moms understand. And if they understood, perhaps they might have felt proud of their unique playspace instead of believing they were simply being experimented on by the council. Perhaps they still can. I wonder what they'll think at this time next year?

While we were talking, a group of children, ranging in age from 5 to 15, came to the playground and began to play together behind us. Quite happily.

No Child Left Inside: the Children and Nature Network

The Children and Nature website has a wealth of resources, providing "access to the latest news and research in the field and a peer-to-peer network of researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children's health and well-being. "
It tracks discussions of outdoor play in the popular news media as well as books and scholarly journals (look under 'news', then 'research and studies' for most of the popular press articles, including a Daily Mail piece on How children lost the right to roam in four generations).
The research section has abstracts (with links to full-text) of scholarly studies.
Here is where you'll find the hard data you need to convince your boss/councilman/pastor/principal/board president/client
NOT to install a typical off-the-shelf playground.
(click on 'publications', then 'research', then 'Volume 1' or 'Volume 2')
A sampling of topics:
Unstructured Free Play Brings Cognitive, Social and Health Benefits
Naturalized School Grounds Benefit Children and Communities
Design Cities Where Children Can Play and Learn Independently
Children’s use of space has changed from being primarily outdoors to indoors and supervised.
Children playing in urban areas may experience lower levels of biological diversity
and my favorite:
Children know more about Pokémon than common wildlife
There's been a strange disconnect for me in the strident advocacy of dense urban living by some in the environmental movement...it can result in children who are near completely severed from the natural environment their parents hope they will grow up to protect. And people rarely protect what they don't know.
Set aside a chunk of time to do some enlightening reading at this site...you can also join to get regular updates by email.

ChildFriendly Cities Manifesto, Stipo et. al., 2004

Take time to peruse this fascinating document generated by Stipo, urban strategy advisors in the Netherlands, who created a team consisting of urban planners, designers, education designers and public space artists to study the need for Child Friendly Cities.

Aldo van Eyck would be so proud.

Excerpts:

Our vision: a young and vibrant cityscape. A city that is good for and full of children, is good for everybody...children should have a (visual) place in the cities public place.

Our vision, combined with the basic trends require a new and rich approach. An approach away from the usual short term solutions. Short term solutions like creating places to hang out for youngsters on the edge of the living zone, where they don’t bother us – but where youth mostly don’t want to be (in Dutch “hangplekdenken”). And short term solutions like the formal mini-playgrounds for smaller children (in Dutch “wipkipdenken”).

We (planners and artists) introduce a concept in which we add a layer of playful, tempting and challenging learning opportunities to public space, and to the objects that are already there anyway.

For the Urban Children Environments, we can imagine names like:
hidden inner city adventure (areas with possibilities for creative use of space in inner cities, like ‘TunFun’, using doorways, semi-public alleys, etc.)
tree house area (areas with possibilities for reconsidering the available green public space, creating possibilities for informal playing grounds)
industrial exploration (areas with possibilities for using temporarily empty buildings, made safe and ‘forbidden’ for youngsters)
parking / play field (areas with possibilities for using parking places for playing kids during office hours)
roof top freedom (areas with possibilities for creating safe playing spaces on rooftops)
kerb adventure (areas with possibilities for using street elements like kerbs and artificial holes for plays like stoop ball and play marbles)
alone close by (areas with possibilities for use of semi-public space in concepts of new collectivity where youth can play close to home but independent)
underground cool (areas with possibilities for using space underground for play grounds, new sports, urban exploration, etc.)
forbidden fruits (areas with possibilities for “facilitating” forbidden places appealing for youth to discover).