Risky Play

A major study by Play England, part of the National Children's Bureau, found that half of all children have been stopped from climbing trees, 21 per cent have been banned from playing conkers and 17 per cent have been told they cannot take part in games of tag or chase. Some parents are going to such extreme lengths to protect their children from danger that they have even said no to hide-and-seek.

"Children are not being allowed many of the freedoms that were taken for granted when we were children. They are not enjoying the opportunities to play outside that most people would have thought of as normal when they were growing up."

Adrian Voce, director of Play England

Play England is determined to spread the message that children ought to be taking risks and that it is 'not the end of the world if a child has an accident'.

Architecture for play?

Last week I put together a research proposal suggesting that a ‘playscape’ was a physical and tangible setting for play (that could be designed by an architect).

Further investigation this week has forced me to redefine the notion of ‘playscape’ as a ‘temporal network of relationships between people, objects and places’. This is because although architecture can provide a ‘space to play’, children also need infrastructure in order to have ‘time to play’.


Objects and spaces only become ‘playscapes’ when they are animated by play. An architect can create a beautiful playground but if no one plays in it (for whatever reason) it can not be termed a ‘playscape’. Moreover, the subversive character of play makes it very hard to design for and anticipate, and thus architects and the built environment only play a partial (but interesting) role in facilitating play and the consequent creation ‘playscapes’.

It is my objective this year to explore the role that architects and the built environment has in the creation of ‘playscapes’ and what this reveals about how can we create ‘successful’ architecture that is ‘used’ and contributes to the community.

For the first part of year I will look at the pedagogic workshop or temporary playscape as a forum for exploring children’s attitudes to the construction of space, the benefits of haptic/ constructive play and to propose ‘playing’ or ‘playfulness’ as a model for the design process.

What is play?

Play can be described as the method by which children investigate their environment and realise their physical and cognitive limitations. Its definition can be ambiguous and varied but its benefits are invaluable.

What is a playscape?

In the everyday spaces of our towns and cities, we increasingly exclude and marginalise the young. Factors such as the rise in use of motorised vehicles, increased parental anxiety and less tolerance for children and young people, has caused the cityscape to become increasingly adult-centric.


Although typically a 'playground' acts as a junction point or a rendez vous for children to communicate and congregate, a playground has been traditionally seen as a separate specialised zone for playing, isolated from the public realm.

My notion of the ‘playscape’ is woven into the urban fabric, providing a stimulating but not proscriptive architecture that is

"‘Methectic rather than mimetic’, that is, more "helping out the action’ rather than a proscription of its likely character."

(Nils Norman, An Architecture of Play: A Survey of London's Adventure Playgrounds)

I propose that a ‘playscape’ is an interstitial landscape that actuates, facilitates and encourages play, galvanising children to explore the capabilities of their bodies and environment. Furthermore, empowering them by providing them with their own architectures, either in built form allowing ‘space to play’ or infrastructure that provides ‘time for play’.

Defining the Architect's role in play

A playscape is a difficult to ‘design’ as play is quite unpredictable, as it involves a response to one’s context which often involves the subversion of the original function of an object, e.g. building a ‘house of cards’ or climbing on a garden wall.

A designer can only hope to provide props and stimulants, which order in order to create a ‘playscape’ must be animated by play, i.e. a playground where children do not play cannot be described as a playscape.

Perhaps a playscape is better understood as a temporal network or constellation of relationships - an interaction between people, objects and spaces, as part of a larger context of community and geography.