The Power of Play: Essential Reads to Inspire Inclusive, Engaging Landscapes

In October, our team focused on the importance of play. To refresh our ideas, our team attended a CPD with Richard Cocker where we explored the value of play from various perspectives. A few stand-out books recommended during the session caught our interest as essential reads for anyone involved in the role of play in our lives.

Here’s a quick rundown:

• Evolutionary Playwork by Bob Hughes – Delving into play’s evolutionary role, this book reimagines play as an essential, instinctual behaviour crucial to children’s development.
• The Play Ethic – A Manifesto fo a Different Way of Living by Pat Kane – Kane challenges the reader to see play not as a diversion but as a central, motivating force that fuels creativity, engagement, and innovation across all ages.
• Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities by Tim Gill – Gill reveals how seeing cities through the eyes of children strengthens the case for planning and transportation policies that work for people of all ages, and for the planet. The book shows how urban designers and city planners can incorporate child friendly insights and ideas into their masterplans, public spaces and streetscapes.
• Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv – Louv’s work highlights the importance of reconnecting children with nature, addressing the consequences of ‘nature deficit disorder.’
• Let the Children Play by Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle – This book advocates for child-led, unstructured play as a vital part of learning and growth, drawing insights from global educational systems.

Each of these works deepens our understanding of play as a crucial factor in well-being, mental health, and social development. Perfect resources to accompany our October theme on play and to inspire inclusive, engaging landscapes.

If you’d like a short read on the different types of play, click here.