The modern playground is, to be
honest, sort of boring. The
bright-coloured, safety-engineered plastic of cookie-cutter prefabricated jungle
gyms can’t make up for the thrilling fun of admittedly rickety seesaws, slick
metal slides that burned on sunny days, and super-fast
merry-go-rounds.
And that’s terrible for kids.
Scientists have found that playing is integral to developing a healthy brain and body. One
2011 study from a pair
of Norwegian psychologists concluded that taking risks (and overcoming them)
during play is an important part of child development, and that preventing
children from encountering risks may lead them to develop anxiety. Thus,
playgrounds where children can climb high, spin fast, and potentially hurt
themselves aren’t just more fun - they’re better for childhood
development.
A diverse range of playground
activities is also important to keep kids active, which improves
motor skills and combats childhood obesity.
In a study of schoolchildren
in Denmark, concrete play areas encouraged much less movement than other
playground types. Children playing on paved surfaces that weren’t marked for any
specific games, like basketball, tended to stay sedentary, while kids moved more
on grass and play equipment.
Luckily, while most playgrounds have
traded fun for lawsuit protection, there are still a few places in the world where unfettered
childhood joy is possible. Here are some of the coolest playgrounds from around
the globe.
1. Neptune
Park
A 30-foot-tall climbing pyramid (taller than most two-story homes) in Saratoga Springs, Utah opened in 2012.The pyramid’s structure is metal, and rope netting inside prevents kids from falling more than 6 feet. It designers tout it as the largest play pyramid in the western hemisphere.
2. Swarovski Crystal
Worlds
Image Credit:
Snohetta
Kids may not care about the history
of the Austrian crystal company Swarovski, but the company museum offers a playground
that makes any tour worthwhile. The four-story play tower features a trampoline,
rope swings, a 45-foot-tall climbing net, and slides.
3. Lake Macquarie Variety
Playground
Image Credit:
City of Lake Macquarie
This Australian playground is
designed for children of all abilities, including visually impaired and
wheelchair-bound kids. It’s got a 40-foot climbing tower, a 30-foot spiral
slide, a zipline, wheelchair-accessible swings and a play boat, musical play
equipment, and more.
4. Imagination
Playground
Image Credit:
New York City Department of Parks and
Recreation
At this playground in New York City, designed by acclaimed architect David Rockwell, kids make their
own fun. This minimalist park is
designed to get kids playing with little more than sand, water, and a set of
blocks. Kids can stack, connect, and manoeuvre the abstractly shaped blue blocks
into new playthings.
5. Nagasaki
School
Image Credit: Studio Bauhaus,
Ryuji Inoue via Curbed
In Nagasaki, Japan, a multi-story
urban school provides a new way to have recess. A playground on the roof deck of
a school designed by architects
Hibinosekkei has a climbing
net that leads up from a playroom downstairs. Inside, there’s even a fireman’s
pole to slide down!
6. Harry Thomas Sr.
Playground
Image Credit:
DC Department of Parks and
Recreation
This Washington, D.C. playground is math-themed, taking its design inspiration from the Fibonacci
sequence, a numeric pattern in which the next number is always the sum of the
last two. The curves of the paths and play equipment are shaped in Fibonacci
spirals.
7. Woodland Discovery
Playground
Image Credit:
Shelby Farms Park Conservancy
In a quest to create the playground
of the future, the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy
in Memphis built a park within the woods where kids have to “look for
opportunities to slide, climb, run, scramble, swing, build, find and discover,”
according to the designers at James Corner Field Operations (also the architects responsible for Manhattan’s High Line). The
designers worked with the input of local kids to determine how they wanted to
play. The result is a playground separated into different “play nests” with
slides, treehouses, climbing nets, sand, and more, all connected by a winding
walkway covered in ivy.
8. The Land
Inspired by the junk playgrounds
proposed by Danish
architect Carl Theodor Sorensen in the 1930s, this Welsh playground is filled
with trash. Largely unimpeded by adult supervision, kids play with hammers,
climb trees, build dens, and light fires. The idea is that “adventure playgrounds”
allow kids to learn how to take risks and cooperate with each other in ways that
playing on a low-slung slide with a watchful adult hovering nearby does not. The
trailer above comes from a documentary
film about the playground that premiered
this past April.
9. New York Hall of
Science
The New York Hall of Science’s Science Playground in Corona, New York is the largest of its kind in the country. The 60,000-square-foot outdoor play space is designed to let kids explore motion, balance, and simple machines. Kids can play with waterworks, clamber up a giant spider web, ride a giant seesaw - and of course learn the physics behind it all.
10. Wallholla
Image Credit:
Goric
Designed to accommodate a large
number of kids in a small space at a school in Purmerend, the Netherlands,
Wallholla is the
playground equivalent of a skyscraper. The structure packs a lot of activity in
a space only a few feet wide. Ribbon-like platforms run throughout a wire mesh
cage that 30 kids can climb in, out, and around at the same time. The structure
is now being sold in the U.S.,
too.
11. Takino Suzuran National
Park Playground
Image
Credit: Masai Koizumi via Net Play Works
Japanese
artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam began turning her crocheted artwork into
sculptural playgrounds
in the mid-1990s. This one,
at Takino Suzuran National Park in Hokkaido, Japan, opened in 2000. The rainbow
net took three years to crochet.
12. Children's Railway
Station
Image Credit:
Monstrum
Danish playground designers Monstrum created this indoor
playground at the Danish Railway Museum, inspired by the local railway station
in the town of Odense in the 1960s. The locomotive-themed playground has a
ticket office, a control tower, a train with passenger carriages and an
explorable engine compartment, and more.
13. Anthill
Playground
Image Credit:
Monstrum
Monstrum is also responsible for this
awesome forest playground at Klehund
Dryrehave, a former hunting plantation in
Denmark. There’s an 8-foot-tall slide shaped like a giant ant, an anthill to
climb, a “lumberjack hut” to picnic in, and a 65-foot-tall watchtower to hang
out in.
14. Bounce
Below
Image Credit:
Bounce Below
At Zip
World in northern Wales, a Victorian slate
mine has been converted into an underground playground with giant trampolines
and bouncy nets connected by walkways and slides. The cavernous
subterranean play space has different
levels, with the highest chamber 180 feet from the floor. This past year, they
introduced a kids’ experience that’s designed for young ‘uns 3 to 6 years
old.
15. City Museum
St. Louis’ City Museum is
essentially one big giant playground. Inside, it has a giant treehouse and a
10-story spiral slide that you can use to whoosh into the building’s basement.
Outside, there’s a 30-foot-tall Ferris wheel on the roof, multiple airplanes you
can crawl into, a rope swing, and more.
16. The Green Heart at Shaw
Park
Playgrounds don’t have to be just for
kids. The Green Heart, an
outdoor gym in Kingston upon Hull, England, is an adult playground. It has
stationary bikes, step boxes, cross trainers, and more. The grown-up jungle gym
is human-powered - it glows at night using energy generated by using the gym
equipment.
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