Adventure Playgrounds & Nils Norman

Nils Norman's "An Architecture of Play" PDF:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/385153/dc78d536ade81ac0a239217ee19d3593.pdf

Nils Norman's "Pocket's of Disorder" essay:
http://www.cityprojects.org/cityprojects_content.php?id=167&i=11

The PDF above is a survey of London's adventure (or junk) playgrounds, which are autonomous building sites for and run by children. Much of this history comes from children colonizing former bomb sites, which were then developed into officially sanctioned and built-out playgrounds, particularly in Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Artist Nils Norman has documented and written about adventure playgrounds as part of his larger project investigating architectures of play and built public space. As part of the project, Norman traces the impact of playgrounds and ad hoc sites of play on early modernist urban planners.

To quote from his text:
"The first official junk playground was opened in 1943 on the outskirts of Copenhagen. (It still operates today). Designed by Sørenson, its original intentions were to create a place where ‘children are themselves the creators’. This ideology, together with notions of ‘Pro-Play’ and later ‘free play’ was crucial to the identity of the adventure playground. Early adventure playgrounds were usually enclosed within a specially designed earth ramp or bushes that helped create a sense of seclusion and safety for the children inside and also to act as a barrier against the mess and noise from outside observers. Dens and huts were put up in spring and then removed in late autumn and the materials used were mostly whatever was available, scavenged or recycled. It was important to Sørenson and his colleagues that children’s play was to take place in nature-like surroundings and nature was imported into the playgrounds offering a lot more than conventional playgrounds, including informal gardening, animal husbandry, water and fire. Wilder areas reminiscent of woods, meadows and the countryside were also part of the design. Early adoptions of the adventure playground model in the United Kingdom and Switzerland (Robinsonspielplätz) began in the 1950s but it wasn’t until the late 60s and early 70s that adventure playgrounds became popular across Europe."

"Literally anything that seemed usable was brought back to the playground as a resource. This form of urban recycling was an important part of the adventure play aesthetic. The aesthetic continues today though the practice has become more regulated. Structures were at first more makeshift and adaptable and gradually the more popular structures have become permanent features, central to the shacks, stages and lean-tos that were tacked on around them. A lot of the structures you see today in more established playgrounds are 3rd or 4th generation versions of the original structure, tuned and tweaked by each successive generation of users. These are usually the most popular structures: ones that enable huge groups of children to interact and play together. The desire to stay off the ground as much as possible is facilitated by platforms, catwalks and walkways connecting various larger structures together. Towers are numerous and come in many shapes, heights and decorative styles. Many playgrounds have structures in them that are half finished or half broken, discarded or vandalised ruin fragments. An important distinction to be made in playground terminology is the contrast between ‘fixed play’ and ‘free play’. ‘Fixed play’ is the antithesis of adventure play and the term is used to describe the ‘inflexible ironmongery’, of unattended immoveable modular metal climbing frames and swings designed by architects, artists or urban planners. The unsupervised fixed play playgrounds are considered to be more dangerous and offer far less choice and complexity of play than adventure playgrounds, but they are much cheaper and far easier to maintain, which makes them a more realistic but unimaginative option for councils and architects when making planning decisions that involve children’s recreation."

Here's a video a lecture where Norman speaks about his research on the heritage of artists working with playgrounds:
https://vimeo.com/21037294