ABSTRACT
The immediate postwar period is considered the “golden age” of playground design. Previously the responsibility of pedagogues, administrators or equipment manufacturers, the playground was brought into the fold of landscape and architectural practice, ushering a period of invention and experimentation which transformed its appearance, meaning and type of play it facilitates (Solomon 2005). The most radical product of the postwar investment in play was the adventure playground. In conscious contrast to the traditional, equipment based playground with its four S’s of the Swing, Seesaw, Sandbox and Slide, instruments which provide primarily a kinetic, physical mode of gratification, the adventure playground has no readymade play equipment. Children are given an empty space, construction tools and waste material. The playground is a work in progress, a product of their activity and inventiveness. It engages the players with the pleasure of making Crawley Adventure Playground, 1955. Courtesy of the Crawley Observer https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315612560/312099c0-1380-48db-a789-fbaec4c9846e/content/fig2_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> things, as well as destroying them, in divergence from the more repetitive forms of play that mechanical play equipment facilitates.
