The Politics of Play

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“Play becomes simplified, and then the child doesn’t have to pay attention to his or her movements,” Danish landscape architect Helle Nebelong says of standardized environments.

Nebelong’s own projects (she runs her own firm in addition to working for the city of Copenhagen) favor the irregularity and asymmetry found in the natural world. At the Nature Playground, which opened in Valbyparken—Copenhagen’s largest park—several years ago, steep hills and felled branches share space with a sand-and-gravel pit and a village of woven willow huts and fences. There are wildflower meadows, a large snail-shaped mound with a spiral path, and five whimsical towers crafted from wood, metal, and Plexiglas designed by students from the Denmark Design School. Lacking plastic gimmickry, the Nature Play­ground attracts visitors of all ages, Nebelong says: “It becomes a place for everyone to enjoy.”

Creative-playground designers, many of whom prefer to carefully edit their use of equipment for psychological and aesthetic reasons, cite another benefit of the practice: reduced costs. “When money is tight, it makes sense to take advantage of existing features—natural rain and water courses, hills, views good and bad, adjacent land uses and neighbors—and turn them into play and learning opportunities,” says Ron King, a New Hampshire–based landscape architect and certified ­playground-safety inspector who is introducing Danish-style plans to American schools and child-care centers. A signature effort, completed last summer at Bedford Memorial Elementary School, includes a ten-foot “mountain” fronted by a boulder climbing wall, a stream (or “leaping chasm”), and winding paths with fairy-tale-like arbors. “The play is not prescribed, so the kids have more opportunities to problem solve and use their imaginations,” says Leslie Fredette, a second-grade teacher. The project has also transformed the school playground into a space for the whole community to gather and exercise. “It’s really gratifying to see all the people here on the weekend,” she says.

Advocates of creative play weave a common narrative about contemporary youth. Car-dominated neighborhoods, media saturation, and overscheduled lifestyles have “limited the spatial conditions of childhood,” says Baldo Blinkert, a sociologist at the University of Freiburg, in Germany. In the 1990s Blinkert’s research on children’s diminishing use of public space inspired city officials to implement a playscape policy; a larger municipal project continues today. “We need not only new types of playgrounds but also an urban environment that makes it possible for children to participate in urban life,” Blinkert says. Freiburg’s next step is to reclaim the street as a safe place for children’s play, where kids can kick a ball, meet new people, or simply watch the world go by.

Will rethinking the playground help break down barriers between children and the city—or for that matter, the suburbs? It’s hardly a modest proposal. But even Kompan, one the world’s largest manufacturers of playground equipment, appears willing to help bridge the gap. In May the company installed an innovative multiage playground in Seattle featuring a new Galaxy product line, inspired by Alexander Calder: it has movable parts and an airy, not boxy, layout. “We recognize that large, brightly colored pieces detract from the architecture of a building or an (adjacent) field,” says Tom Grover, Kompan’s vice president of sales and marketing. “Aesthetics,” he notes, “is one of many drivers that’s making playground design change.”

Provided by Metropolis Magazine—The Magazine of Architecture, Culture, and Design