Busselton Foreshore Adventure Playspace with a sailing ship as part of the playground
An adventure playground is a specific type of playground for children. Adventure playgrounds can take many forms, ranging from "natural playgrounds" to "junk playgrounds", and are typically defined by an ethos of unrestricted play, the presence of playworkers (or "wardens"), and the absence of adult-manufactured or rigid play-structures.[1][note 1] Adventure playgrounds are frequently defined in contrast to playing fields, contemporary-design playgrounds made by adult architects, and traditional-equipment play areas containing adult-made rigid play-structures like swings, slides, seesaws, and climbing bars.[2]
Adventure playgrounds are based on an idea from Danish landscape architect Carl Theodor Sørensen, who noticed that children were more fascinated by piles of scrap materials than the playgrounds that he had designed. In 1931, he articulated his vision of a "junk playground in which children could create and shape, dream and imagine a reality" that offered the play opportunities of rural areas to children in cities.[3]
In 1943, the first adventure playground was set up by a Workers Cooperative Housing Association in Emdrup, Denmark, during the German occupation of the 1940s. The playground grew out of the spirit of resistance to Nazi occupation and parents' fears that "their children's play might be mistaken for acts of sabotage by soldiers".[4] The 1946 book Why Not Use Our Bomb Sites Like This? caused "the idea of transforming bomb sites into 'junk playgrounds' to spread in the United Kingdom. The book, written by an English landscape architect and child welfare advocate Marjory Allen, discussed the Emdrup playground.[5] Previous youth workers, including an art therapist in a Blitz-era play center in London, had identified permissive play as a tool to combat childhood aggression.[6][7]
Mischievousness and sneaking around were criminalized in Nazi occupied Copenhagen, Adventure Playgrounds were born as a response. —Play:groundNYC,#playwork [8]
Harry Shier, in Adventure Playgrounds: An Introduction (1984), defines an adventure playground as "an area fenced off and set aside for children" where they can "play freely, in their own way, in their own time" and "build and shape the environment according to their own creative vision". The spaces have been referred to with English terms such as "junk playground" (a calque from the Danish term skrammellegeplads), "waste material playgrounds", or "bomb-site adventure playgrounds".[9][10] The term "adventure playground" was adopted in the United Kingdom "in an effort to make the ‘junk’ playground concept more palatable to local authorities".[11]
British architect Simon Nicholson praised adventure playgrounds for teaching "the relationship between experiment and play, community involvement, the catalytic value of play leaders, and indeed the whole concept of a free society in miniature.'"[12] He argued that in a play area, or any environment, "the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery" are correlated with the number and variety of what he called "loose parts", such as old tires, hammers and nails, mud, and random found objects.[13][14][15]
Play advocates have emphasized the importance of adventure playgrounds for children of color in the United States, where policing "can feel like a kind of occupation".[4]
A children's festival at an adventure playground in Kiel, Germany
List of adventure playgrounds
As at 2015 or earlier, there were about 1000 adventure playgrounds in Europe, most of them in England, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. There are also adventure playgrounds in Japan.[16]
This is an incomplete list.
The Americas
Canada
TELUS Spark, in Calgary, Alberta has a Junkyard Playground open in the summer months.[17]
The city of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, piloted a mobile adventure playground in five city parks during the summer of 2016.[18][19]
Toronto Ontario hosted an Adventure Playground from 1974 until the mid-1980s. It was a part of the revitalization of the waterfront called Harbourfront Centre.[20]
The City of Coquitlam in British Columbia created an Adventure Playground in the summer of 2018 as a pilot project.[21][22]
Denmark has several adventure playgrounds, now known as Byggelegeplads (Building-playground) and formerly as Skrammellegeplads (Junk-playground).[65] 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.[66] Present active adventure playgrounds in Denmark includes:
Abenteuerspielplätze und Kinderbauernhöfe in Berlin, or AKiB for short, is a federation of adventure playgrounds and children's farms in Berlin, Germany[75]
Ben Highmore, Adventures in Lollard Street: An Experimental London Playground, 1955–60, History Workshop Journal, Volume 97, Spring 2024, Pages 174–195, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbae001
↑"Play is a process that is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated. That is, children and young people determine and control the content and intent of their play, by following their own instincts, ideas and interests, in their own way for their own reasons." "Playwork Principles". playwales.org.uk. Playwork Principles Scrutiny Group. 2005. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
↑The Setagaya Play Park was featured in episode 48 of Arirang's "Going Global" series "Going Global _ Japan "adventure playground"". www.arirang.com. ARIRANG CULTURE. Archived from the original on 2021-12-19. Retrieved January 23, 2017.
↑Hayward, Geoffrey D.; Rothenberg, Marilyn; Beasley, Robert (1974). "Children's Play and Urban Playground Environments: A Comparison of Traditional, Contemporary, and Adventure Playground Types". Environment and Behavior. 6 (2): 131–168. doi:10.1177/001391657400600201. S2CID220476708.
↑Orazi, Stefi; Lang, Ruth. Perambulation No.12 Lambeth South London: A walking guide to modernist housing. London.
↑Carpenter, Peter (2025). Bowie land: walking in the footsteps of David. p.82. ISBN9781800961562.
↑Leichter-Saxby, Morgan (2007). Constructing the "Natural" Child: The Materiality of Play, Power and Subversion at Evergreen Adventure Playground (MA). University of London.
↑Schling, Rosa, ed. (2024). Weavers Adventure Playground. London: On The Record. ISBN9780992739348.
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