Hobbies And Interests
Access
Any public playground design should allow access for all children, regardless of their age. It’s important to allow handicapped children easy accessibility to the play area, as well as playground equipment suited to their needs. In addition to entryways into the playground, the play area design team should factor in roads and other methods of accessing the site. Safe walkways and parking lots should be part of the project as well.
Play Zones
Because older children play harder and have quicker reaction times, their games and equipment should be set apart from the equipment used by toddlers and younger children. Even within age-specific areas, it’s appropriate to set up different play zones, such as water play zones, team sports zones and quiet zones. Shrubs and grass can serve as buffer zones to help transition the children from one play activity to another safely.
Moving Equipment
Swings are usually the most popular piece of equipment on the playground. The moving equipment zone for swings, merry-go-rounds and slides works best when placed near the perimeter of the playground. Allowances for the swing’s movement are necessary when placing the swing set. The merry-go-round needs to have access low enough that all children can easily jump on it. To prevent injury, slide exits need to set away from areas where children run.
Surface
No one type of surfacing material works everywhere on a playground. Concrete and asphalt are totally unsafe under play equipment unless they have at least 9 inches of shock-absorbent material on them. Grass and dirt have their own set of problems that directly relate to weather conditions. Loose fill materials, such as recycled, chopped rubber, works as a good cushion under swings and merry-go-rounds, but isn’t suitable around toddlers who might try to eat it. There are unitary surface materials on the market that take synthetic shock-absorbing mats and bind them to the ground, but this product is expensive.
Visibility
It’s important that adults supervising children in the playground have a clear line of sight from any position in the playground. While trees and shrubs are important sources of shade, they may hinder visibility. When designing comfort zones and rest areas within the playground, the play area’s designer must consider sight lines from every angle.