Trendswatch | Outdoor play areas

The importance of outdoor play has attracted a lot of attention in recent years, particularly since Covid. Research has shown that it is crucial, not only in terms of promoting movement and exercise, but improving connections to nature, supporting healthy cognitive and emotional development, and nurturing social skills.

It is no wonder that museums and heritage sites are improving their outdoor offerings in the hope of reaching new audiences, while building a connection with what is going on within the institution’s walls.
A stimulating and inclusive play area can be an invaluable and interconnected part of a museum’s offering.

Creating accessible play areas

A recent success story comes from Royal Museums Greenwich in London, which developed a maritime-themed play area on a marginal strip of land. The Cove – featuring a climbable sea monster and a slide through the Cutty Shark’s mouth – was the brainchild of play space designer Cap.Co (Creating Adventurous Places).

The project had a budget of £500,000 and included consultations with 200-plus stakeholders, such as SEND groups. The museum wanted to ensure the playground was accessible, so all children could play together – but the consultation highlighted that spaces in which wheelchair users and non-wheelchair users play together are rare.

Embedding play for children with a range of experiences and abilities was intrinsic from the outset, says Ruth Boley, Royal Museums Greenwich’s senior manager of learning. She says: “We were fortunate that Cap.Co saw the ideas raised via the stakeholder sessions as design opportunities, rather than problems.” 

As a result, 85% of the Cove is accessible to wheelchair users. It also features a multi-sensory Captain’s Table and accessible ramps with playful twists and turns.

Cap.Co’s immersive, story-driven play experiences emphasise the importance of exposure to risk, independent exploration and doing away with age restrictions.

“Rather than an age limit, we have a bravery limit, and we use clever design to make everything safe,” says Simon Egan, who works on project development at Cap.Co.  

Head designer Stephen Vass says: “Confident, healthy kids usually grew up outside, learning about risk by falling out of trees and skinning their knees. In the digital age, we’ve slightly lost that.”

Creating cohesive play experiences

It’s crucial that standalone play areas still feel part of the wider museum experience. English Heritage’s new playground at Dover Castle, Dover Castle Under Siege, invites kids to scale walls, squeeze through tunnels and even fire a wooden trebuchet.

At  Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust’s Blists Hill Victorian Town, Cap.Co created the Madeley Wood Company Outdoor Adventure. Features include sawmill buildings, coal trucks and mock mine shafts, as well as elevated walks above the woodland floor, a log-style basket swing, seesaw and lookout tower.

“The areas were designed to be immersed in the site’s history and context, with the black sand used to represent coal a key detail,” says Egan.

Relating play areas to the museum’s history encourages children and adults to visit the rest of the site.

Creating a connection with the museum while promoting the use of its green spaces has also been in the Horniman Museum and Gardens’ plan to open a natured-themed play area next summer. This was conceived with landscape architect J&L Gibbons.

Featuring slides, tunnels, ramps and walkways made of natural materials, the area takes a sustainable approach towards extreme weather.

“Rain gardens will be incorporated to help absorb groundwater and rainfall run off,” says Peronel Craddock, the Horniman’s director of content. "Natural play opportunities and enhanced planting beneath the existing trees will make the most of the sloping ground, allowing families to enjoy the shade of the trees in the summer.”

Creating confident kids - and parents

Promoting messier outdoor play also presents challenges for museums.

Craddock says: “When we consulted families from local housing estates – representative of the new audiences we hope to bring to the Horniman through the project – some raised concerns such as perceived safety, unfamiliar materials for play, and questions around how parents would engage children in types of play that they themselves were unfamiliar with.” 

As a result, the museum’s community engagement team will run introductory sessions to increase confidence among visitors.

A nature-focused approach is intrinsic to Green Play Project, which produces sustainable and inclusive outdoor spaces from robinia, larch and oak. The Bristol-based company has created playgrounds for Bath’s American Museum and St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff. The latter includes spaces easily accessed by most children, but not adults, to create a sense of independence.

Permitting children to lead play and interact away from adults is one of the most important elements of a successful playground, but it has more indirect outcomes too. At the National Maritime Museum, the Cove has been a catalyst for extending approaches to play in other areas of the museum.

Such projects can lead to more expansive thinking within the museum itself, encouraging more playful approaches to engaging not only young audiences, but adults and staff alike.

Holly Black is a freelance journalist