The September meeting
of Willamette Valley Chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute featured a thought-provoking presentation by Eugene
landscape architect Anita Van Asperdt
on the topic of natural playgrounds. Anita explained how such settings are increasingly
popular, a response to the “nature deficit disorder” unwittingly fostered by well-meaning
albeit overly protective adults who mistakenly believed they could not safely leave
kids to creatively play by themselves in unstructured, wild and wooly nature. Nature
play is an antidote for our youngsters’ obsession with digital distractions,
from video games to social media, and an alternative to parents’
over-programming of their kids’ time. Today’s natural play environments offer children
a means to explore the world in much the same way preceding generations did throughout
human history before our modern world intervened.
Originally from the Netherlands, Anita graduated from Larenstein College. After her education there and work with
the City of Amsterdam, she moved to the United States, where she received an
advanced degree at the University of Oregon and raised her two children. She’s worked
as an adjunct assistant professor at both the U of O and the University of
British Columbia, for which she has taught study-abroad design studios in
Amsterdam. Presently, Anita serves as the chair of the Eugene Collaboratives of the Cascadia Green Building Council.
Anita and her firm, LandCurrent, are experts in the design
of natural play environments. Landcurrent has designed projects
as diverse as the Hoquarton Trail and Park in Tillamook, the Cooper Mountain Natural Area in Beaverton, the Urban Design Master Plan for the Courthouse
Neighborhood in Eugene, and several commercial designs and contemporary garden
projects. Further afield, Anita led the design effort for a natural play and
discovery area commissioned by the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, as
well as the design of three distinct natural play environments for the Ottawa Montessori School in Ontario, Canada.
Anita Van Asperdt
Though she’s worked here in Oregon for many years now, Anita continues
to be influenced by Dutch landscape designers, who have been leaders in advancing
the concept of nature play. She cited the example of the Speeldernis (which translates to
English as “Playderness”), located in Rotterdam. In her opinion, the Speeldernis
is an exemplary nature play area, despite the fact that it might seem dangerous
to the American eye. Instead of covering all areas with soft wood chips to
avoid injuries, the design of the Speeldernis helps children develop their own
sense of caution and safety.
This was a key point of
Anita’s presentation: letting kids learn about caution by themselves may
actually be safer for them than providing overly-designed and purposely-safe
environments. Children are capable of understanding risk. Given the chance
to do so, they can perceive, gauge, and judge risk on their own. They instinctively
develop the ability to understand when something may be unstable, or slippery,
or otherwise unsafe. The development of this sense comes easier with nature
play, rather than with activity in more structured playgrounds. Notably, the Speeldernis
has only reported one serious accident (a broken collarbone), in ten years of
use.
Nature play also helps kids
learn empathy and encourages them to take care of one another, by providing
challenges which encourage teamwork. This means that the children’s wellbeing is
not only enhanced by their own sense of safety, but also by an increased
willingness to help one another. Such empathy, trust, and teamwork are valuable
for every child’s development.
In addition to presenting a
more challenging, engaging space for play, the Speeldernis provides
opportunities for city kids to learn about the environment. Rotterdam is a large
city, so natural playgrounds and parks provide relief from the dense urban
setting. Kids discover nature by themselves in the Speeldernis by interacting
with it, and observing the different plants and animals around them. This un-programmed
learning is one of the many benefits of natural playgrounds.
Unstructured natural
playgrounds such as the Speeldernis also allow kids to interact with the environment
in more spontaneous and creative ways. In normal playgrounds, play structures
are focused; intentionally, there are limited ways to use the structures, and
these ways are obvious in the design of the equipment. Anita explained that manufacturers have moved toward more naturalistic
designs; however, these designs focus first and foremost upon controlling how
kids use the equipment in order to exercise a manageable “standard of care.”
This is not the case in more
natural playgrounds; instead, kids get to decide how they interact with their
environment, and how to manipulate elements such as
rocks, dirt, branches, water, and so on to create their own creative play
experiences. This lack of structure provides cognitive benefits for
kids, enhancing creativity and independent thought. Fundamentally,
nature play is not about equipment; it’s about giving children the freedom to
choose how to play, how to explore, and letting nature be nature (rather than a
“safe,” plastic facsimile).
Nature play means choosing
among many possible adventures: Following meandering paths. Finding quiet,
shady nooks from which to watch and contemplate. Just hanging out, or talking
to friends. Scaling and sliding down a hill. Climbing a tree. Building a fort.
Playing with sand and water. Watching birds and butterflies. Collecting and
sharing pretty pebbles. Ideally, natural play environments foster both active
and passive moments of play.
Anita talked
about how a blue-ribbon group of experts, led by Robin Moore and Allen Cooper,
has developed a comprehensive set of guidelines for nature play areas. Entitled
Nature Play & Learning Places: Creating and Managing Places Where Children Engage with Nature, the document
provide a road map for park and recreation agencies and other providers of children’s
play spaces to follow when addressing the challenges of planning, designing and
managing quality natural play and learning areas.
Nature Play & Learning Places describes
how to create places for nature play and learning, navigate risk and site
management challenges, and includes inspirational photos of nature play and
learning places from across the country. In Anita’s opinion, the book reflects
the movement toward the proliferation and importance of natural play
environments in our future.
Anita
began her presentation with an eye-opening and yet far-from-surprising graphic
describing how much times have changed in just the past century: the
great-grandparents of today’s children were afforded enormous freedom to
explore their world; their kids not as much, and their grandchildren even less
so. Today, their great-grandchildren simply aren’t allowed to spend time
outdoors by themselves, unsupervised. Looking back at my own childhood, I’m
amazed by how different it was a mere 50 years ago. My brothers and I had the
run of the neighborhood, and we took full advantage of the chance to exercise
our imaginations and bodies by truly playing without boundaries. We didn’t need
the structure of a day full of appointments to keep ourselves entertained and
occupied.
The
advent of natural play environments represents a swinging of the pendulum back
toward a time when it was normal for kids like me to learn about and connect with
nature in the course of play, when it was okay to play in trees, poke at bugs,
and make mud pies. Thanks to Anita for highlighting the importance now more
than ever of spontaneity, exploration, creativity, and nature in the
development of children!
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