A world of pure imagination.

As school children enjoy their summer holidays, EDLA Landscape Architects Georgia Timpson and Eleanor Trenfield discuss why imagination, adventure, and risk should be at the heart of all playschemes

This week saw National Playday celebrated, a day organised by charity and campaign group Playday to celebrate play, and support the right of every child and young person to have the time to play, and as importantly, the right space to do it in.

Playday maintains that play is essential for children and young people’s physical and mental health, for building relationships, for dealing with challenges, and for coping with stress. It also allows children to test their limits and learn about risk. Which is a key life skill.

Recent research supports Playday’s views and suggests that risky play has many benefits and is associated with children’s wellbeing, involvement, and physical activity (Sando et al, 2021) as well as improved abilities to perceive and assess risks (Lavrynsen et al, 2017). As children experiment with what their bodies can do, they gain confidence and intuition about what is and isn’t manageable and safe. Research has also demonstrated that risky play can lead to increased social interactions, creativity and resilience, and decreased aggression

As children experiment with what their bodies can do, they gain confidence and intuition about what is and isn’t manageable and safe. Research has also demonstrated that risky play can lead to increased social interactions, creativity and resilience, and decreased aggression

But when anyone says risk, it immediately conjures up thoughts of ‘danger’. But this is too limiting.

As Georgia Timpson, EDLA’s Assistant Landscape Architect, says, ‘Risky play doesn’t have to be dangerous; it just has to be non-prescriptive.’ For example, a tumbling water feature, on a boat with sand and pulleys is arguably riskier than a single slide in a fenced-off, rubber matt floored playground. But the potential it gives for adventure and imagination and most importantly a different experience each time it’s played with, far outweighs the risk that these materials may pose. In fact, it is these experiences that could be the spark that ignites the water engineers of the future.

The value of interesting, exciting but safe play areas for both children, and the community they live in cannot be underestimated. We need to allow children to explore the world (unharmed) but realistically. Never is this more important that now particularly now, after a pandemic that saw playgrounds shut and children stopped from any outdoor play for many months.

It is important that we grab the future and freedom we now have again and build spaces that let our young people run as naturally free as possible.

“As designers, we should be doing all we can to demonstrate the beauty and enhancement that adventurous play schemes offer. As well challenging the status quo and cross-industry risk-averse approach”, explains Eleanor Trenfield, EDLA Co-Director.

Eleanor is quick to clarify that there is no blame being apportioned, “Ultimately everybody wants to keep children safe, and nobody wants to be liable for a child being hurt,’ she says, “But what we need to see is a wholesale culture change that enables more creative playgrounds to be created that enhances people’s lives.”

Positively, however, she has seen signs that things are changing, ‘We are beginning to see our clients push for more naturally designed and imaginative spaces as they understand it as a benefit and offers an attractive addition to their schemes.”

As Playday puts it, we need to see, a “Space that offers more play, better play, every day!”

“As designers, we should be doing all we can to demonstrate the beauty and enhancement that adventurous play schemes offer. As well challenging the status quo and cross-industry risk-averse approach”, explains Eleanor Trenfield, EDLA Co-Director.

“As designers, we should be doing all we can to demonstrate the beauty and enhancement that adventurous play schemes offer. As well challenging the status quo and cross-industry risk-averse approach”

Georgia agrees. After a recent professional trip to Bavaria, Germany, with renowned play space builders and designers, Timberplay, she returned energised and inspired to inject imagination, challenge and risk in her future playscape designs.

She argues, “The idea that risk is beneficial in play comes from the inviable fact that life is risky and thus children need to learn how to manage this. If children aren’t exposed to any risk as they develop physically, socially, and mentally, they will not learn important self-protecting strategies.”

Or to put it another way, telling a child, ‘Not to climb that’ ‘or that’s too heavy for that’ or ‘don’t walk on that wobbly bridge, you may fall’ (all things that parents naturally do) doesn’t make them understand how to use their bodies and brains to mitigate against hazards. Allowing children to understand their limits, to test themselves and as importantly to use their imaginations to solve problems (and fail) in relatively safe environments is so important.

Bavarian play company Richter Spielgerate sums it up with their philosophy of, ‘design as much play value as possible, and as much safety as necessary.

This essentially means working cleverly within the currently very strict safety regulations and pushing the boundaries to offer as much enriching adventure in the space as possible.

“The idea that risk is beneficial in play comes from the inviable fact that life is risky and thus children need to learn how to manage this

Similarly incorporating as many naturalistic elements into designs goes hand in hand with creative, risky schemes, and offers the added benefit of connecting children to nature. An important extra element that contributes to self-esteem and mental wellbeing. Studies suggest that traditional playgrounds with swings and slides afford the fewest opportunities for risky play, whilst more natural play areas utilising materials such as wood and ropes, allow for the most challenging play (Lee, 1999).

Things that EDLA would like to see more of (whilst accepting it will not be appropriate for all play spaces) include:

• Natural materials, to connect children to the natural world and reduce plastic use in equipment
• Loose materials including sand and water, to allow children to build and manipulate the environment around them
• Loose, naturalistic flooring like pea gravel and woodchip rather than wet pour rubber crumb, to improve the drainage of playground surfaces and reduce the surface impact
• No fencing, open access play spaces, to create welcoming spaces that can form part of the wider landscape
• Play that is accessible in a subtle manner, to allow children of all different types of abilities to play in the same space, in a way that is not belittling or differential
• Equipment that is exciting time after time, and can be used in different ways, so children use it repeatedly and never get bored.
• Creative play design which stimulates children’s imaginations.

Schemes that we believe do all of this extremely well include the Diana Memorial Park Playground, and Salute Playground, which is the largest playground in Moscow.

One feature that is particularly notable in the Diana Memorial Park was that the playground was specially designed to create an area where less able and able-bodied children can play together and seeks to provide for the physical, creative, social, and educational development of all.

Which is another positive proponent of newer and more adventurous play spaces.

Willy Wonka, in Roal Dahl’s Charlie and Chocolate Factory, tells his golden ticket winners (and through them all people in the world), ‘There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination.’

Good advice for us all to remember when we are creating and building play schemes for our vibrant and colourful communities and the inventors, engineers, scientists, and explorers of the future.

• Ann Lavrysen, Els Bertrands, Leene Leyssen, Lieve Smets, Anja Vanderspikken & Peter De Graef (2017) Risky-play at school. Facilitating risk perception and competence in young children, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 25:1, 89-105, DOI: 10.1080/1350293X.2015.1102412
• Brussoni, M.; Gibbons, R.; Gray, C.; Ishikawa, T.; Sandseter, E.B.H.; Bienenstock, A.; Chabot, G.; Fuselli, P.; Herrington, S.; Janssen, I.; Pickett, W.; Power, M.; Stanger, N.; Sampson, M.; Tremblay, M.S. What is the Relationship between Risky Outdoor Play and Health in Children? A Systematic Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2015, 12, 6423-6454. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606423
• Lee, S.-H. (1999). The cognition of playground safety and children’s play – a comparison of traditional, contemporary, and naturalized playground types. In M. L. Christiansen 19 (Ed.), Proceedings of the international conference of playground safety. Pennsylvania: Penn State University: Center for Hospitality, Tourism & Recreation Research.