Playground equipment-Kids need free-range play
Playground equipment-Kids need free-range play
“There’s all kinds of powerful research that shows that play is a natural vehicle for children to learn about themselves and the world,” explains Roger Hart, a professor in the Environmental Psychology Ph.D. Program of the CUNY Graduate Center, the co-director of the Children’s Environments Research Group, and a member of the play:groundNYC board of advisors.
“One of the things that’s wonderful about public space, and the reason we have to preserve it for children, is that it is a democratic space,” Hart tells CityLab. “It’s a space that should involve all kids and should be safe and it’s a place where they can be next to one another and inventing culture and transforming it. They’re making a new world.”
Having the first semi-permanent play:groundNYC project on Governors Island—a ferry ride away from Brooklyn and Manhattan—means that it will be a destination. As Meyers explains, that status has its pluses and minuses. “The plus is that lots of people will come and it will get attention with the sort of cachet of it being Governors Island,” she says. “But in lots of parts of Europe...adventure playgrounds are more integrated into lower-income neighborhoods, and they become a place where young people can go and have a space that’s safe and has adult supervision. The playworkers become almost like a big brother or big sister or social worker-type role. So we recognize that our playground will be different in that respect.”
However, the goal is that the destination location will draw lots of people—and, in turn, attention—to the power of adventure playgrounds. “My hope,” says Hart, “is that it will spark initiatives at the community level where children can have a more sustained relationship to a rich environment like that…There need to be more places where we can see children healthily inventing activities by themselves, with each other, rather than a society that is preparing everything for them.”
“There’s all kinds of powerful research that shows that play is a natural vehicle for children to learn about themselves and the world,” explains Roger Hart, a professor in the Environmental Psychology Ph.D. Program of the CUNY Graduate Center, the co-director of the Children’s Environments Research Group, and a member of the play:groundNYC board of advisors.
“One of the things that’s wonderful about public space, and the reason we have to preserve it for children, is that it is a democratic space,” Hart tells CityLab. “It’s a space that should involve all kids and should be safe and it’s a place where they can be next to one another and inventing culture and transforming it. They’re making a new world.”
Having the first semi-permanent play:groundNYC project on Governors Island—a ferry ride away from Brooklyn and Manhattan—means that it will be a destination. As Meyers explains, that status has its pluses and minuses. “The plus is that lots of people will come and it will get attention with the sort of cachet of it being Governors Island,” she says. “But in lots of parts of Europe...adventure playgrounds are more integrated into lower-income neighborhoods, and they become a place where young people can go and have a space that’s safe and has adult supervision. The playworkers become almost like a big brother or big sister or social worker-type role. So we recognize that our playground will be different in that respect.”
However, the goal is that the destination location will draw lots of people—and, in turn, attention—to the power of adventure playgrounds. “My hope,” says Hart, “is that it will spark initiatives at the community level where children can have a more sustained relationship to a rich environment like that…There need to be more places where we can see children healthily inventing activities by themselves, with each other, rather than a society that is preparing everything for them.”
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