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.
Video Adventure playground
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 Emdrupvej, 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."
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."
The UK
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. While Marjory Allen's article is often credited with the introduction into the UK of "the idea of transforming bomb sites into 'junk playgrounds', 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."
Maps Adventure playground
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
- 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.
- United States
- Mercer Island, Washington
- Adventure Playground in Berkeley, California
- Huntington Beach Adventure Playground in Huntington Beach, California
- Adventure Playground in Irvine, California
- The Hands-on-Nature Anarchy Zone in the Ithaca Children's Garden, Ithaca, NY
- Adventure Playground at The Parish School in Houston, Texas
- Play:groundNYC on Governors Island in New York City.
Asia
- Japan
- The Setagaya Play Park or "Junk Playground" in Hanegi Park in Setagaya ward, Tokyo, Japan.
- Children's Dream Park ?????????? (or "Yume Park") in Shimosakunobe, Kawasaki Takatsu Ward, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
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.
- 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.
- Germany
- KiB--A federation of adventure playgrounds and children's farms in Berlin, Germany
- Switzerland
- Robi-Spiel Aktionen--An organization of adventure playgrounds in Basel, Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- Camberwell, England
- Eccleshill Adventure Playground, also known as The Big Swing (Bradford, England)
- Evergreen Adventure Playground, Dalston, London
- Glamis Adventure Playground, London
- Lockleaze Adventure Playground, Bristol, UK.
- The Land (Adventure playground) in Wrexham, Wales, UK
See also
- Playwork
- Pop-Up Adventure Play
- Sudbury School
- Tinkering School
- Makerspaces
- Free-range parenting
- Forest kindergarten
- Lady Allen of Hurtwood
Literature
- C. Th. Sørensen (1931): "Parkpolitik i Sogn og Købstad", (in Danish)
- "Risk and Safety in Play: The law and practice for adventure playgrounds (2003)"
- Joan Almon, Editor. (2017) Playing It Up--With Loose Parts, Playpods, and Adventure Playgrounds, Annapolis, MD: Alliance for Childhood.
- Mike Lanza (2012): "Playborhood: Turn Your Neighborhood Into a Place for Play", Free Play Press
- 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): 81-90. doi:10.17759/psyedu.2014060207. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
- 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.
Film
- Erin Davis (2015): The Land
- British Pathé (1950-1959): Come Out To Play Reel 2 1950-1959 includes a "junk playground" sequence.
- William H. Whyte (1980): The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces includes a "junk playground" sequence.
- Alliance for Childhood - play:ground NYC
Arts and Theature
- Junkyard (musical) written by Jack Thorne about Lockleaze Adventure playground (or 'The Vench') in Bristol.
Notes
References
External links
- Playground Ideas, an Australian-based organisation providing resources to start and build adventure playgrounds worldwide.
- "Imagination Playground" -- A company selling a set of giant blue blocks. Used at some school playgrounds and museum playspaces.
- The Overprotected Kid, The Atlantic, 2014
- Inside a European Adventure Playground, The Atlantic, 2014
- Where the wild things play, NPR, 2014
- Play Wales, the national charity for children's play.
- Pop-Up Adventure Play
- Adventure Playground: A Parable of Anarchy
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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