Tessa Rose Natural Playspaces Blogspot: 2013

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

East Village Childcare Centre

I just got word that the East Village Childcare Centre has had their Developmental application approved by the City of Sydney. It was a pleasure to work with Wayne Sammut from Ionic Management and Karl May from Turner Studios to create an outdoors playspace, indoors (on the 5th floor actually). The fantastic architectural visualisation below was created by Sunny Chan of Ivolve Studios.

The playspace is designed to have an open ventilation system, Low-E glazing and a built-in irrigation system so the plants get all they need to keep them growing.

A large greenwall will help to cool and oxygenate the playspace, and there will be plenty of opportunity to play, play, play with two sandpits, log steppers for seating and climbing, timber balance beams and slides. There are also hidden quiet areas and areas for meditation.

The raised garden beds will host a number of sensory native trees, shrubs, grasses and climbers and separate raised beds will be used for growing edible herbs and veggies.

With a greater development of Australian inner city areas I have noticed an increased trend to integrate childcare centres, including the playspace, within the new residential/commercial complexes, both usually above ground level. I understand that the creation of indoor playspaces may be paramount in areas of the world that experience extreme temperature variations but this is an emergent and challenging trend in Australian childcare design. Challenging and rewarding in that I have been able to work with developers and architects who are aware of the benefit of natural playspaces and are happy to consider them integral components of any new centres' design.

Sunday, 1 December 2013

The kids don’t play any more

The kids don’t play any more - The Globe and Mail

“Play is a powerful way to impart social skills,” writes Peter Gray, an evolutionary psychologist who believes children’s lives have become ruinously regimented. Play also teaches children how to manage intense negative emotions, such as fear and anger, and to test themselves by taking manageable risks. Unstructured and unsupervised (oh, horrors!) play is crucial for their development.

“In play, children make their own decisions and solve their own problems,” Prof. Gray writes. “In adult-directed settings, children are weak and vulnerable. In play, they are strong and powerful. The play world is the child’s practice world for being an adult.”

Those kids playing shinny until dusk weren’t just wasting time. They were learning life lessons in problem-solving, negotiation and resilience. And they were better off without your help.

In hunter-gatherer societies, children play constantly until late adolescence. But today, as Prof. Whitebread observes, play has been almost squeezed out of their lives by a risk-averse society, by our separation from nature and by our widespread cultural assumption that “earlier is better.”

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

B.C. school bans kindergarteners from touching each other | CTV British Columbia News

B.C. school bans kindergarteners from touching each other | CTV British Columbia News

Full article can be read from the link at the top.

What a bloody ridiculous, ill-thought, insurance driven idea. I wonder how long it will take for Australian schools to adopt it?

'A Langley elementary school has banned kindergarten students from touching each other at recess, a policy some parents think is both unnecessary and unworkable.

Mom Julie Chen said she was shocked when she received a letter sent home with Coghlan Fundamental Elementary students on Friday outlining the new hands-off rule.

“I can’t imagine little kids not being able to hug each other or help each other on the playground,” Chen told CTV News. “No tag, no hugging, no touching at all.”'

Toys 'R' Us messes with Mother Nature: trees vs. toys [+video] - CSMonitor.com

Toys 'R' Us messes with Mother Nature: trees vs. toys [+video] - CSMonitor.com

Natures' boring and toys are fun! Corporate interests must really be feeling threatened by the Nature movement to come up with this uniquely crappy advertisement.

Thursday, 24 October 2013

Newly completed - Engadine Church of Christ Preschool

Engadine Church of Christ Preschool,

Engadine, Sydney, New South Wales

Construction: J M Landscapes

I usually post before and after photos of newly completed playspaces but the staff at Engadine have done it form me. They kept an ongoing photo diary of the the build progress which can be viewed here.

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Teaching The Hudson Valley

Teaching The Hudson Valley

Usually I'm not a great fan of Apps however these are free and are provided by the Wilderness Society the National Wildlife Federation.

'Every season is right for kids to play outside and explore the world around them. Here are some organizations, books, apps, and nature centers to help you get out there!

"When a child is out in nature, all the senses get activated. He is immersed in something bigger than himself, rather than focusing narrowly on one thing, such as a computer screen. He's seeing, hearing, touching, even tasting. Out in nature, a child's brain has the chance to rejuvenate, so the next time he has to focus and pay attention, perhaps in school, he'll do better...But even if kids don't have any of the specific problems mentioned above, kids who don't get out much lack the sense of wonder that only nature can provide." -- Richard Louv from an interview with Scholastic

Sunday, 20 October 2013

More recycled timber furniture

More recycled timber furniture bound for a lucky LDC in Cronulla.

Two armchairs, essential for kicking back in the shade and catching up on ones reading, or perhaps the perfect place for spending some quality restful time, when plays' become to hurly burly.

Plus a table and two stools for all those collaborative play activities.

Sunday, 22 September 2013

In the Digital Age, How to Get Students Excited About Going Outdoors | MindShift

In the Digital Age, How to Get Students Excited About Going Outdoors | MindShift

Love Sobel. Full article can be read from the link above.

A comprehensive report of outdoor activity released this year by the Outdoor Foundation says that only 38 percent of participants ages 6-12, and 26 percent of kids ages 13-17 reported doing things outside like running, hiking, and biking. “Although participation rates were stable for younger participants from 2011 to 2012,” the report states, “the rates are still significantly lower than they were in 2006.”

.....Sobel recommends in his book Beyond Ecophobia that instead of learning about the devastation happening in the rainforest, young children (under fourth grade) should first learn about “even just the meadow outside their classroom door.” ... Sobel has observed that the time to engage kids in social action begins sometime around age 12. Before that, children should be allowed to experience nature for themselves and see the beauty and possibility.

He writes, “If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it.”

Look, Ma – no laptop: kids click with nature - Environmental News | The Irish Times - Sat, Aug 10, 2013

Look, Ma – no laptop: kids click with nature - Environmental News | The Irish Times - Sat, Aug 10, 2013

A great fresh perspective on children and nature" Full article can be read from the link above.

"This mass culture of boredom is a recent development. For millennia, most young humans never had time to be bored. Life was a constant battle for basic survival, often involving child labour and great hardship. Even today, far too many children still inhabit that grim world.....landscapes, the cycles of seasonal vegetation and migrations – remains almost invisible to many of us."

"Put children on a football pitch and they will probably wait to play until someone explains the rules, or at least gives them a ball. But put the same children in a meadow, on a rocky shore or in a wood and they will very soon be inventing games for themselves.....The pleasures of that kind of broad interaction with nature will be more deeply anchored if children develop just a little bioliteracy through field trips with teachers or local nature groups"

Monday, 16 September 2013

The Berkeley Adventure Playground

I was recently reading a great piece in the the American Landscape Architecture magazine about the Berkeley Adventure Playground. It operates in the style of those adventure playgrounds that were quite common in Europe after the war, but now have been dumbed down because of the ever present spectre of potential liability or eradicated completely as inner city real estate prices boomed.

The City of Berkleys' website indicates that, 'The Adventure Playground at the Berkeley Marina was opened in 1979. It is a wonderfully unique outdoor facility where staff encourage children to play and build creatively. Come climb on the many unusual kid designed and built forts, boats, and towers. Ride the zip line or hammer, saw, and paint. By providing these low risk activities Adventure Playground creates opportunities for children to learn cooperation, meet physical challenges and gain self confidence. Pictures of a fort building project. The concept for Adventure Playgrounds originated in Europe after World War II, where a playground designer studied children playing in the "normal" asphalt and cement playgrounds. He found that they preferred playing in dirt and lumber from the post war rubble. He realized that children had the most fun designing and building their own equipment and manipulating their environment. The formula for Adventure Playgrounds includes Earth, fire, water, and lots of creative materials.'

The playground has strict codes for childrens' participation and play as well readily defining the adults role as play facilitators, something that is more often not the case at other similar playspaces. The website is a great source of information about other US adventure playgrounds and even contains a link to an American National Public Radio show featuring sound-bites taken from a report.

I'm not even going to discuss the possibility of Australia embracing this type of playspace, way to many naysayers, helicopter government bodies and rabid insurance companies for it to be anything other than an idea.

Friday, 30 August 2013

Rozelle Childcare Centre - Stage II, 0-2's & Community area.

This is Stage Two in a three part process that the Rozelle CCC is engaged in to upgrade their playspaces. The primary challenge on this project is that the CCC is located within the grounds of the historic Rozelle Hospital and occupies the Gatehouse of the same. Therefore many, many, many conferences with the local council, arborists, historical consultants etc, etc, before the DA for Stage II was approved. The Community area is used as a chill out area for the staff (and parents) as well as a venue for the many fundraising events the management committee arranges. The shed near the main gate (built around the existing trees) is used for storage of prams and the centres' barbie. A side of the shed has been painted with blackboard paint, a great place to chalk news of up-coming events as well as post notices.

0-2's Playspace, Before, 2010