Adventure playground

An adventure playground is a specific type of playground for children. The first opened in Emdrup, Denmark in 1943. In 1948, an adventure playground opened in Camberwell, England.

Adventure playgrounds are typically staffed by "playworkers", also called "wardens" in early examples.

History

C. Th. Sørensen, a Danish landscape architect, noticed that children preferred to play everywhere but in the playgrounds that he designed. In 1931, he imagined "A junk playground in which children could create and shape, dream and imagine a reality". Why not give children in the city the same chances for play as those in the country? His initial ideas started the adventure playground movement.^[1]

Early examples of adventure playgrounds were known as "junk playgrounds" or "bomb-site adventure playgrounds".

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.^[2]

United States

• Mercer Island, Washington
• Adventure Playground in Berkeley, California
• Adventure Playground in Huntington Beach, California
• Adventure Playground in Irvine, California
• Ithaca Children's Garden, Ithaca, NY
• Amaze'ing Acres Adventure Play Land, fingerlakesmaze.org
• Adventure Playground in Houston, Texas
• play:groundNYC (New York City)

Europe

Denmark

Denmark has several adventure playgrounds, now known as Byggelegeplads (Building-playground) and formerly as Skrammellegeplads (Junk-playground).^[3] 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.^[4]

• Skrammellegepladsen, Emdrup.

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

• The Land -- Wrexham, UK
• Camberwell, England
• The Big Swing (Bradford, England)

See also

• Playwork
• Sudbury School
• Tinkering School
• Makerspaces
• Free-range parenting
• Forest kindergarten

Literature

• C. Th. Sørensen (1931): "Parkpolitik i Sogn og Købstad", (Danish)
• "Risk and Safety in Play: The law and practice for adventure playgrounds (2003)"
• Mike Lanza (2012): "Playborhood: Turn Your Neighborhood Into a Place for Play", Free Play Press

References

1. History of Adventure Playgrounds
2. The Play and Playground Encyclopedia
3. "Adventure Playgrounds Copenhagen 2003" (PDF). YNKB. 2003. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
4. "Børnenes Kulturkanon [The Childrens Culture Canon]". skrammelvenner.dk (in Danish). Ministry of Culture Denmark. Retrieved 22 February 2016.

External links

• "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
• Student Thesis: Kinderparadijs (Children's Paradise): Advancing the Adventure Playground Movement
• Movie: The Land, 2015