Playscape Design
RMCAD Spring 2018 Andrea Guevara & Katherine Sorenson IDSD 2870 Holistic Design Tom Thompson
Contents
Children’s Outdoor Play & Learning Environments - Children learn best through free play and discovery. - Quality play involves the whole child: gross motor, fine motor, senses, emotion, intellect, individual growth and social interaction.1 - Biophilia is the biologically based human need to affiliate with nature and the genetic basis for human’s positive responses to nature.2 - Studies have provided convincing evidence that the way people feel in pleasing natural environments improves recall of information, creative problem solving, and creativity.3 - When children play in nature they are more likely to have positive feelings about each other and their surroundings.4 - Natural outdoor environments have three qualities that are unique and appealing to children as play environments - their unending diversity; the fact that they are not created by adults; and their feeling of timelessness - the landscapes, trees, rivers described in fairy tales and myths still exist today.5 - Nature for the child is sheer sensory experience. Children judge the natural setting not by its aesthetics, but rather by how they can interact with the environment.6 Haas, Malka. “Children in the Junkyard.” Childhood Education, vol. 72, no. 6, 1996, pp. 345–351., doi:10.108 0/00094056.1996.10521885. 2 “The Biophilia Hypothesis Stephen Kellert Edward O. Wilson.” The American Biology Teacher, vol. 56, no. 7, 1994, pp. 444–444., doi:10.2307/4449879. 3 Ulrich, R. S., “Biophilia, Biophobia, and Natural Landscapes”, The Biophilia Hypothesis, Kellert & Wilson (eds), Washington D.C., Island Press, 1993. 4 Moore, Robin, “Compact Nature: The Role of Playing and Learning Gardens on Children’s Lives”, Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, Vol. VIII, 1996. 5 Prescott, E., “Environment as Organizer in Child-Care Settings”, Spaces For Children: The Built Environment and Child Development, C. S. Weinstein & I. G. David (eds), New York, Plenum, 1987. 6 Sebba, Rachel, “The Landscape of Childhood, The Reflection of Childhood’s Environment in Adult Memories and in Children’s Attitudes”, Environment and Behavior, v23, n4, p 395-422, 1991. 1
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Designing Outdoor Spaces for Children “From a child’s perspective, everything is an interactive surface with the potential to be sculpted, painted, draped, or molded artistically…. Their play is often a response to subtle variations in the places and sensations that surround them.” – Anita Rui Olds What to Do? - Use the landscape and vegetation as the play setting and nature as much as possible as the play materials. - The natural environment needs to read as a children’s place; as a world separate from adults that responds to a child’s own sense of place and time. - Children’s idea of beauty is wild rather than ordered. Therefore, a plan for wildness provides openness, diversity, and opportunities for manipulation, exploration and experimentation. Loose parts, sand, water, manipulatives, props and naturally found objects are essential tools for children’s play.
- Through children’s handling, manipulation and physical interaction with materials and the natural environment, they learn the rules and principles that make the world operate. - Outdoor areas lend themselves to meeting children’s individual needs. - Natural environments allow for investigation and discovery by children with different learning styles. - Using universal design principals can be designed as accessible to children with special needs without accessibility features being obvious. What to include? - Water, vegetation (trees, bushes, flowers and long grasses), animals, sand, natural color, diversity and change, places and features to sit in, on, under, lean against, and provide shelter and shade, different levels and nooks and crannies, places that offer privacy and views structures, equipment and materials that can be changed, actually or in their imaginations, including plentiful loose parts.
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Montessori Education Montessori is a method of education that is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play. In Montessori classrooms children make creative choices in their learning, while the classroom and the teacher offer age-appropriate activities to guide the process.7 The main purpose of a Montessori school is to provide a carefully planned, stimulating environment which will help the child develop an excellent foundation for creative learning.8 “What Is Montessori Education?” Montessori Northwest - Montessori Teacher Training & Professional Development in Portland, Oregon, montessori-nw.org/what-is-montessori-education/. 8 “Goals of a Montessori School.” MontessoriConnections, montessoriconnections.com/about-montesori-education/goals-of-a-montessori-school/. 7
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Little Lyceum Montessori - Location: 800 S Sheridan Blvd, Denver, CO 80226 - Space Requirements: Outdoor space for toddlers (from 18 months to 36 months of age), outdoor space for infants (from 36 months to 6 years old), and common green areas including their greenhouse. - Montessori Outdoor Ideals:
- Spontaneity, independence and freedom.
- Promote motor activities (balance and equilibrium).
- Promote learning experience including math, science, and
language.
- Sensorial exposure.
- Life cycle (animals and plants).
- Embrace nature (care of environment).
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Existing Space Conditions
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Ideation Process Design Statement: Create a design that stimulate children’s senses and to nurture the child’s curiosity, allow for interaction with other children, with adults and with the resources in the play space. A design that create opportunities for meaningful play experiences, emphasizing free play (unstructured), exploration, collaboration, creativity, and promote learning and development using principles of biophilia.
Propose Design Concepts: (1) Elements of Nature: Fire, Water, Air, Earth. (2) Life Cycle: Incorporate the main idea to animals, plants, etc. (3) A combination between the ocean and marine life including ship parts and fishing equipments.
Elements of Nature Charrette: - Air: wind, sails, kites, bubbles, clouds, balloons, windmill, ball pit, mobile, wind chime. - Fire: sun dial, light show, fire pit, fire station, hot potato, walking over coals, energy, heat, solar. - Earth: cave, earth mounds, plants, climbing, sandbox, fossils, tree trunk hop scotch, tree house, geezer. - Water: fishing, pond, fishing for alphabets, well, mudslide, pirate ship, car wash, sprinklers.
Basic Concept
Inspire kids using the four elements of nature; children will learn about the world around them at its most natural state.
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Inspirational Images
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Sket & Mo
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tches & odel
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e r i F
Air
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Earth
r e Wat
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Model Images
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Drawings
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Design Considerations
Special considerations must being make when designing spaces for children since they vary greatly depending on the age or developmental level.
Privacy Preferences: • Children need and desire their own territories for self-expression, identification, contemplation, and relaxation. • Girls preferred private places, Spaces, places, and privacy are whereas boys preferred public important considerations deplaces. signing playground for children. • Boys prefer more public enviEven though, younger children ronments that allow them to see do not require as much privacy and be seen and provide a sense as a pre-adolescent or adolesof belonging to something larger cent, privacy is important to their than themselves, gain confidevelopment of a sense of self dence and forge friendships. (individuality) and self-esteem. Research suggest that the act of play promote cognitive develThe proposed playsapce is opment, creativity, fine/gross designed to provide feelings of motor skills, social interaction, privacy, control, and security. relaxation and the release of stress, etc.
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What is Play? • Light, brisk, or changing movement (e.g., to pretend you’re a butterfly) • To act or imitate the part of a person or character (e.g., to play house) • To employ a piece of equipment (e.g., to play blocks) • Exercise or activity for amusement or recreation (e.g., to play tag) • Fun or jest, as opposed to seriousness (e.g., to play peek-a-boo or sing a silly song) • The action of a game (e.g., to play duck-duck-goose). Csikszentmihalyi (2008) studied play in-depth and has determined that play is equal to “flow” or a “flow state” in which we feel: • Involvement - Complete focus and concentration, either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training. • Delight - A sense of bliss and positive detachment from everyday reality. • Clarity - Great inner clarity and a built-in understanding about the state of affairs. • Confidence - An innate sense that the activity is doable and
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that your skills are adequate to the task, you don’t feel anxious or bored. • Serenity - A sense of peace and an absence of worries about self. • Timelessness - Thorough focus on the present and a lack of attention to the passing of time. • Motivation - Intrinsic understanding about what needs to be done and a desire to keep the moment of play moving. Types of Play (Parten, 1932): • Onlooker Behavior- Playing passively by watching or conversing with other children engaged in play activities. • Solitary Independent- Playing by oneself. • Parallel- Playing, even in the middle of a group, while remaining engrossed in one’s own activity. Children playing parallel to each other sometimes use each other’s toys, but always maintain their independence. • Associative- When children share materials and talk to each other, but do not coordinate play objectives or interests. • Cooperative- When children organize themselves into roles with specific goals in mind.
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Design Implications for Promoting Play: • Children prefer outdoor play areas to indoor play areas (Burke, 2005) • Everyday objects (e.g., lampposts) can become meaningful places for children to gather (Burke, 2005) • Create informal spaces where impromptu games can take place (e.g. open fields) as important as or more important than formal play areas (Burke, 2005) • Different play activities may require different environmental conditions (e.g. raised or flat ground, small or large areas, natural or hard surfaces) • Areas that support age-appropriate play activities. • Design child activity areas where children can work on projects uninterrupted and without fear their project will be disrupted or destroyed (e.g., separate art project areas from large-muscle activity areas) (Kantrowitz & Evans, 2004).
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Children often like to dig in sand, create dams in water channels, stack stones or other objects, and build or make things. Their creations can give children great satisfaction. As children plan and carry out construction projects in natural play areas they are often working cooperatively with other children. The projects may require children to think creatively, innovate, and problem solve. As they collect and manipulate objects and fit them together the children are developing their spatial awareness abilities. They may also be practicing math. (Crampton, 2018).
Water Play
Develop Motor skills. Water Play gives many opportunities to develop fine and gross motor skills across age ranges. It also promote oroblem solving skills and allow children to explore a substance and make discoveries about it. Moreover, promote Playscape Highlight Activities: social-emotional growth since Sand Box and Hut water play releases energy, it can Promote cooperation and conbe both invigorating or relaxing struction. It’s important that there and calming for young children. are constructive things for children Finally, it also promote science to do in anatural playground. and mathematics learning.
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Water Play builds the foundation for understanding various scientific concepts (Team, Kids Club, 2017).
Swings
Swinging helps children to learn sensory integration, or in other words, the body’s ability to organize its experiences with touch, movement, body awareness, sight, sound, and the pull of gravity (News).
Sound Machine
Science has shown that when children learn to play music, their brains begin to hear, and process sounds that they couldn’t otherwise hear. This helps them develop “neurophysio-logical distinction” between certain sounds that can aid in literacy, which can translate into improved academic results (Locker, 2014).
Ribbons
Color is one of the first ways your preschooler makes distinctions among things she sees; color words are some of the first words she uses to describe these things (Colors and Shapes).
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Ceiling Shapes
When children explores different shapes,they are using one of the most basic educational processes: the observation of same and different. This concept provides them with a basic process that they will be able to use in observing, comparing and discussing all they see and encounter(Colors and Shapes). To conclude, we believe that teh proposed design will be suscessful since we: 1. Use of natural elements. 2. Provide a wide range of play experiences. 3. Accessible activities for both disabled and non-disabled children. 4. The overall design will allow children of different ages to play together. 5. The design build in opportunities to experience risk and challenge. 6. The design is sustainable and appropriately maintained and, 7. Allow for change and evolution.
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Works Cited Brown, Stuart L., and Christopher C. Vaughan. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. New York: Avery, 2009. Print. Burke, Catherine. “Play in Focus: Children Researching Their Own Spaces and Places for Play.” InformeDesign. American Society of Interior Designers, 2005. Web. 31 July 2011. <http://www.informedesign.org/Rs_detail.aspx?rsId=2550>. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Stith Bennett. “An Exploratory Model of Play.” American Anthropologist 73.1 (2009): 45-58. Wiley Online. Web. 31 July 2011. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ aa.1971.73.1.02a00040/pdf>. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008. Print. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Some paradoxes in the definition of play. In Cheska, A.T. (Ed.). Play as context, (pp. 14-26). West Point, NY: Leisure Press. 1981.Print. Fox, Jill Englebright. “Back to Basics: Play in Early Childhood.” Earlychildhood NEWS. 2008. Web. <http://www.earlychildhoodnews. com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=240>. Fromberg, Doris Pronin, and D. F. Gullo. “Perspectives on Children.” Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Education. New York: Garland Pub., 1992. 191-94. Print. Frost, Joe L. Play and Playscapes. Albany, NY: Delmar, 1992. Print.
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Garvey, Catherine. Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1977. Print. Kantrowitz, Elyse J., and Gary W. Evans. “Daycare Activity Areas Affect Children’s Play” The Relation Between the Ratio of Children Per Activity Area and Off-Task Behavior and Type of Play in Day Care Centers (2003). InformeDesign. American Society of Interior Designers. Web. 31 July 2011. <http://www.informedesign.org/Rs_detail.aspx?rsId=2640>. Kopec, Dak. Environmental Psychology for Design. New York: Fairchild, 2006. Print. Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin of Chapel Hill, 2008. Print. Malone, Karen, and Paul Tranter. “Playground Design Impacts Play and Learning.” Children’s Environmental Learning and the Use, Design and Management of Schoolgrounds (2003). InformeDesign. American Society of Interior Designers. Web. 31 July 2011. <http:// www.informedesign.org/Rs_detail.aspx?rsId=1766>. Parten, Mildred. “Social Participation among Preschool Children.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 27 (1932): 243-69. Print “Play, Creativity, and Learning: Why Play Matters for Kids and Adults.” Helpguide.org: Expert, Ad-free Articles Help Empower You with Knowledge, Support & Hope. Web. 31 July 2011. <http://www.helpguide.org/life/creative_play_fun_games.htm>. Scales, Barbara. Play and the Social Context of Development in Early Care and Education. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1991. Print.
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Shackel, Aileen, Nicola Butler, Phil Doyle, and David Ball. “Design for Play: A Guide to Creating Successful Play Spaces.” Play England: Making Spaces for Play. DCSF Publication, 2008. Web. 31 July 2011. http://www.playengland.org.uk/media/70684/design-for-play.pdf Stewart-Pollack, Julie, and Rosemary Menconi. Designing for Privacy and Related Needs. New York: Fairchild Publ., 2005. Print. Vandenberg, B. “Play Theory.” The Young Child at Play. By Greta G. Fein and Mary Rivkin. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education on Young Children, 1986. 17-22. Print. Haas, Malka. “Children in the Junkyard.” Childhood Education, vol. 72, no. 6, 1996, pp. 345–351., doi:10.1080/00094056.1996.10521885. “The Biophilia Hypothesis Stephen Kellert Edward O. Wilson.” The American Biology Teacher, vol. 56, no. 7, 1994, pp. 444–444., doi:10.2307/4449879. Ulrich, R. S., “Biophilia, Biophobia, and Natural Landscapes”, The Biophilia Hypothesis, Kellert & Wilson (eds), Washington D.C., Island Press, 1993. Moore, Robin, “Compact Nature: The Role of Playing and Learning Gardens on Children’s Lives”, Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, Vol. VIII, 1996. Prescott, E., “Environment as Organizer in Child-Care Settings”, Spaces For Children: The Built Environment and Child Development, C. S. Weinstein & I. G. David (eds), New York, Plenum, 1987. Sebba, Rachel, “The Landscape of Childhood, The Reflection of Childhood’s Environment in Adult Memories and in Children’s Attitudes”, Environment and Behavior, v23, n4, p 395-422, 1991.
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“What Is Montessori Education?” Montessori Northwest - Montessori Teacher Training & Professional Development in Portland, Oregon, montessori-nw.org/what-is-montessori-education/. “Goals of a Montessori School.” MontessoriConnections, montessoriconnections.com/about-montesori-education/goals-of-a-montessori-school/. Crampton, Linda. “Natural Playgrounds for Children: Advantages and Problems.” WeHaveKids, WeHaveKids, 4 Jan. 2018, wehavekids.com/parenting/Natural-Playgrounds-For-Kids-Advantages-and-Problems. Team, Kids Club, and Kids Club Team. “5 Interesting Benefits of Water Play in Early Childhood Development.” Kids Club Child Care Centres, 18 Sept. 2017, www.kidsclubchildcare.com.au/5-benefits-of-water-play-in-early-childhood-development/. “News.” The Importance of Swings in Child Development | Super Spinner, www.superspinner.com/blog/swings-for-young-childrenwhy-swinging-is-important. Locker, Melissa. “Music Can Alter Your Child’s Brain.” Time, Time, 16 Dec. 2014, time.com/3634995/study-kids-engaged-music-class-forbenefits-northwestern/. “Why Colors and Shapes Matter.” Colors and Shapes Are Building Blocks of Cognitive Development | Scholastic.com, www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3746476.
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Playscape Design
RMCAD Spring 2018 Andrea Guevara & Katherine Sorenson IDSD 2870 Holistic Design Tom Thompson
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