Reply To: How to masterplan a multi-purpose orphanage/school facilitiy?

[Elizabeth Renton]

I bet the article may have been referencing landscape architect Robin Moore, and his work with the Natural Learning Initiative. He’s a well-known designer of outdoor children’s spaces and he ALWAYS advocates that the children should be involved in the design process. He co-authored a book, Natural Learning, i think it was, about transforming a barren asphalt schoolyard into a thriving ecologically-diverse play environment. Good stuff.

 

And tom’s comments about building forts…that concept is the core philosophy of the adventure playground movement that was popular in the 60’s and 70’s. Adventure playgrounds are still popular in Europe but have died out in America. The whole concept was to provide children with ‘loose parts’ and 1 or 2 play supervisors and let them create their own environment. The imagination playground in NYC that the architect designed was modeled after this idea, but on a much toned-down way. The original adventure playgrounds arose out of war-bombed sites in Europe after WWII….the kids literally used the rubble to re-construct their own environments. As more adventure playgrounds were built they provided lumber, bricks, masonry, simple tools etc. and the kids (with adult supervision) built fantastic play structures. In the 80’s adventure playgrounds started to die out as parents’ fears of lawsuits prevailed despite the fact that the playgrounds had been studied and had a very small rate of injury. Now there’s maybe only one or two left in California.

 

Not that any of this has anything to do with masterplanning the community. But it’s a good discussion about children’s environments, and what they really want/ enjoy vs. what adults think is best for them. I would encourage you Alex to incorporate some of these concepts somewhere in the school/orphan community. As anyone with a kid can tell you, most of the time the kid prefers playing with the empty cardboard box rather than the adult-designed toy that was in it. Loose parts offer the freedom of creativity.