More on playgrounds
More on playgrounds
What is the responsibility architects to consider kids with disabilities?
Now, I don’t know much about designing play spaces that are good for kids with disabilities. This picture reminded me about the importance of my incompetence regarding this issue.
It’s not that the designers purposely “dissed” kids with disabilities. I doubt that the designers said something like, “let’s make it hard for kids with disabilities to use this playground” during their deliberations on the design. But, were there more accommodating alternatives that could be used?
Play spaces are “not my department,” as they say. But, I think those places are important for us to consider. Just as we humans should design literacy spaces that support kids with disabilities, we should also design play spaces that work for everyone.
Now, I don’t know enough to critique the space shown in the photo (it’s about 1 mile my house), but I think it’s important for us (we who are concerned about families of kids with disabilities) to help our communities to construct play spaces that are conceptualized with thought about kids with disabilities.
Last time (September 2021) I wrote about playgrounds, I was prompted by a news feature that described a local play space that had been created so that children with disabilities so use it. I made comments similar to those in the foregoing paragraphs.
In the earlier SET post, I also included some links about research on accessible playgrounds. (As is true for most the archives for SET, that post has a paywall; readers with paid subscriptions will be able to review it.) I just searched for more recent results and I’m adding a few of them here.
Resources
Moore, A., Boyle, B., & Lynch, H. (2022). Designing for inclusion in public playgrounds: a scoping review of definitions, and utilization of universal design, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, DOI: 10.1080/17483107.2021.2022788
Odorico, N., Sottile, A., James, M. E., Millar, C., Leo, J., Latimer-Cheung, A. E. C., & Arbour-Nicitopoulos, K. P. (2022). Investigating strategies to foster quality participation on playgrounds for play programmers and parents of children with disabilities. Journal of Exercise, Movement, and Sport (SCAPPS refereed abstracts repository), 53(1).
Stevens Jr, W. R., Borchard, J. M., Sleeper, P., Dempsey, D., Jeans, K. A., Jo, C. H., & Tulchin-Francis, K. (2022). Inclusive community playgrounds benefit typically developing children: An objective analysis of physical activity. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffspor.2022.1100574
Wenger, I., Prellwitz, M., Lundström, U., Lynch, H., & Schulze, C. (2022). Designing inclusive playgrounds in Switzerland: Why is it so complex? Children’s Geographies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2022.2077093
Wenger, I., Schulze, C., Lundström, U., & Prellwitz, M. (2021) Children’s perceptions of playing on inclusive playgrounds: A qualitative study. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 28(2), 136-146. DOI: 10.1080/11038128.2020.1810768
Playground designers, like all contemporary architects, ought to be creating play spaces for all children following principles of universal design. No one should have to remind them.
But as with every other access example, it can not be emphasized enough that “access” means access to opportunities, not merely physical spaces. Engineering “opportunities” doesn’t come readily to designers and architects. That’s where educators and others concerned about children have to assertively jump in.