WebUrbanist » Urban Adventure Playgrounds: The Coolest Places You Probably Never Played as a Kid

Urban Adventure Playgrounds: The Coolest Places You Probably Never Played as a Kid

Where was your absolutely favorite place to play as a kid? Chances are, it was a pillow fort, a tree house or anywhere but a traditional playground. Moreover, studies have now shown that when children’s play has an element of danger it is strangely more healthy than safe play.

What Are Adventure Playgrounds? In short, adventure playgrounds are places where children can create and modify their own environments, rather than relying on rigid equipment that only serves a limit set of programmed purposes: “In a sense, you and I have always played in ‘adventure playgrounds.’ We created a fort in the kitchen cabinets, jumped from couch to couch across oceans; we snuck out through a hole in the fence to a new world. We climbed trees and hid in bushes. We played in the mud and the rain. We chased each other, made secret worlds …”

So How Did Adventure Playgrounds Get Started? Believe it or not, modern adventure playgrounds began with wastelands of World War II. Designers then had the idea to institutionalize these spontaneous and accidental junk playgrounds. Initially the principle point was to encourage a more natural form of play, but increasingly the emphasis has been on sustainability and hands-on building, allowing children to create and ‘own’ their playgrounds.

What Are the Benefits of Adventure Playgrounds? Reasonable risk can be healthy, according to those who support the adventure playground movement: “The opportunity to be able to access a rich play environment, and assess and take risks, is paramount for the healthy development of all children, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and creatively.”

We created spaces with whatever we could find around us. Some of us played in abandoned buildings, or barns, or vacant lots between buildings, used what we found and made up stories of our lives to be. Here you go, hammers, saws, nails, wood, tires, rope, cloth, whatever you can find. Make it your own.

Want More? Check Out These Great Related Articles:

Posted by Urbanist November 27th, 2007
Abandonments, Architecture, Guerilla Action, Urban
Comments: 41

Comments

Comment from Tom Webster
Time: November 27, 2007, 8:14 am

That is really cool, I wish people thought like this more often.

Comment from Justin
Time: November 27, 2007, 1:38 pm

These places look quite dangerous.

Comment from Neal
Time: November 27, 2007, 6:56 pm

That would have been so fun. Who cares about all the shit they outlaw today (tag) hahaha, I don’t care what anyone says, break a little rules every now and then. Not saying it’s safe but still fun.

Comment from Random
Time: November 27, 2007, 6:56 pm

I don’t know if this is sad or just the coolest thing ever, God still loves us. Yaaaaaaa!!!!!!

Comment from anonymous
Time: November 27, 2007, 6:58 pm

its like a open source playground

Comment from Dreamster
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:14 pm

I totally remember those from when I was a kid! Are they still around?

Comment from Anon
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:14 pm

the adventure playground at the Berkeley marina was, and is to this day, my favorite place in the bay. if you found nails or trash, you could turn them in for tools like hammers, saws, paint, and paint brushes so you could build or rebuild whatever you fancied.

Comment from Iain Burke
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:16 pm

Comment from Bryce
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:17 pm

Yeah… nothing compares to the St. Louis City Museum (www.citymuseum.org). It is ridiculously unbelievable…

Comment from NotTheWebUrbanist
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:23 pm

Yay for tetanus!
Although I do like the Pirate ship design…

Comment from sumdog
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:32 pm

I went back to my elementary school playground during high school. All the monkey bars and jungle gyms were gone! Totally removed!

I talked to a friend who went to another elementary school in the area and he said he noticed the ones at his old playground were gone too.

I’m betting some kid probably killed themselves on one or suffered serious brain injury and they had rich parents who yelled a lot and had them removed, not realized that there are a hundred other ways a kid can fall from trees and other play objects and suffer the same injuries.

We are so protective today. I loved climbing on those bars in those jungle gyms.

Comment from Analisa Short
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:47 pm

Great place to hang out.
I have seen simmilar type of playgrounds in Europe where this kind of places are fundedby local officials and sposors.

Comment from huntington
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:54 pm

I actually had the experience in one of these as a kid in orange county California, in Huntington beach.. Gothard Park.. They had a place where you could build and a mud lake you could raft around in… ahhh, the good old days before the [censored] took over the planet.. So what if you got hurt, it’s your own dam fault!

Comment from CCNA Exploration
Time: November 27, 2007, 7:59 pm

Wow.. I missed a lot when I was young.

Comment from Iconoclast
Time: November 27, 2007, 8:21 pm

Can I play?

Comment from tubgirl
Time: November 27, 2007, 8:29 pm

I used to play in a playground like the one in the first pic. It was at the middle school I attended.

Comment from bwm
Time: November 27, 2007, 8:38 pm

Great stuff! Of course, imagination is just as powerful on regulation playground equipment.

When I was an elementary school kid in the late ’70s/early ’80s, my school had enormous playground equipment. For instance, the tallest slide was easily 10 (12?) feet tall (and all stainless steel!), as was the biggest swingset. I recall many recesses spent swinging as high as possible or climbing that slide and testing ways to go down faster (wintertime was fun)… on top of that, the playground surface was either asphalt or hard packed ground!

What I also recall is that injuries small or big were nearly non-existent. If someone did get hurt it was a lesson learned, not grounds for a lawsuit… ahhh, the good old days of being responsible for yourself and paying attention to what was going on around you.

Comment from Jay
Time: November 27, 2007, 8:51 pm

you’re absolutely right, i never been to any of these places as a kid lol

Comment from frank miller
Time: November 27, 2007, 10:00 pm

If you think it’s dangerous, don’t go near it and keep your kids at home, safe, like that strange family across the street when I was growing up. The rest of us will play out there. It is very good for kids and grandkids, within reason, to encounter real life obstacles and have to make quasi-supervised decisions.

Comment from Daniel Curran
Time: November 27, 2007, 10:07 pm

I saw these in the “Up” Series - l(ook for 7-Up, 14-Up, 21-Up etc at Netflix), GREAT SERIES Follows 7 year olds all the way to 49 which was shot a year or two ago.

Always thought these “adventure Playgrounds were cool!

Comment from Aviva
Time: November 27, 2007, 10:18 pm

you MUST check this web site out. It has good pictures and videos, but not as good as the real thing. We were walking around St.Louis, and we saw this building, so decided to go in. I will NEVER forget it! It is made from some historic parts of the city (old giant bank safe doors, bottles…) and has an amazing atmosphere, especially with the soft tickings of a shoelace machine!
ENJOY!
http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp

Comment from tommy
Time: November 27, 2007, 11:06 pm

this is absurd and incredibly contrived. creating a space for kids to explore and take risks? turn off the tv. unplug the computer. put the ps3 and Wii in the trash. open the door and set your children free: make sure they are home by 6:30 for dinner. until then relax, knowing that they are taking risks, finding their own limitations, and building their own worlds.

Comment from Joe Goran
Time: November 27, 2007, 11:34 pm

These things are awesome! I wish we had these as a kid though I feel they are even more needed now. People need to stop their california mindsets that “if one kid gets hurt, we should make it so no kid ever gets hurt that way again.” This is a completely BS line of thinking which is why there are no more monkey bars and some schools have gotten rid of recess all together.

Comment from adrew
Time: November 28, 2007, 3:00 am

Sweetness. I remember stealing off to make forts and play in old construction dump piles… this seems a LOT safer! :)

Comment from Kenneth Tan
Time: November 28, 2007, 5:51 am

We’ve become so carefull about our kids outside environment, in the process we’ve killed the kid inside.

Comment from Catalin
Time: November 28, 2007, 7:35 am

Nice playground :) , kinda reminds me of my childhood’s playgrounds.
In my childhood days , me and my friends used to enjoy playing in construction sites.This was back in early 90’s, when our neighbourhood was in fact a big giant construction site :).We played hide and seek on the roof of 10 stores high unfinished building.These unde construction buildings were our the primary source for PVC plastic tubes , which we used to make toy “guns” who fired paper conic projectiles (we called them cornet :).Armed with these “weapons” , plenty of notebooks (paper) , we engadged in daylong teamplay “battles”.
The place was so damn dangerous, anytime you could fall from high floors.But the real danger was in fact the site’s watchman, who would reaaaally kicked our ass so badly ,if we were caught stealing those pvc tubes :).
I used to injure myself a lot in my childhood, I was full of scars from playing, beating and so on :)
Nowadays, the neighbourhood is (damn)quiet, the kids don’t hangout too much outside.They spend their spare time online ,watching TV or in afterschools, because their parents are overprotecting them.Sad…
I wish i can spend one more day of my childhood

Comment from Brendan Crain
Time: November 28, 2007, 11:20 pm

Oh, this reminds me of that Sesame Street segment where a bunch of kids got to design and build their own playground, and it had a castle and some murals and…stuff. My memory of it is very vague, but I do distinctly recall being extremely jealous of those kids.

I wonder what an open source playground for adults might look like…?

Comment from John
Time: November 30, 2007, 6:41 am

@sumdog: more likely some kid knocked a tooth out or got a mild concussion.

Comment from tec
Time: December 4, 2007, 5:32 pm

Grew up in Munich, Germany.
There were several of those adventure playgrounds, one round the corner of my kindergarten. I certainly enjoyed playing there.
Would love to head over there right now…

Comment from Marc
Time: December 7, 2007, 3:32 pm

Oh boy, did I love the “Bouwspeelplaats” (construction playground) in my city when I grew up. Once a membr, you could lent 1 tool, like a hammer or a saw or a paint brush, and build whatever you want. There was an area with huts, an area to play soldiers with sewer pipes, indoors, canteen wher you could get candy etc.
Now my kid is growing up, and I would be terrified of him going to a place like that…. But, I probably would let him go anyways. The memories are irreplacable.

Comment from Country Code Usa
Time: December 15, 2007, 1:29 am

Amazing message.
I know you’ll like my website..
Bye

Comment from DJ Inphinity
Time: December 18, 2007, 5:37 am

nice place…

Comment from michael meka
Time: February 6, 2008, 9:26 am

finally, some pictures where I grew up

Comment from Woody
Time: February 14, 2008, 11:46 am

There used to be one of these in Toronto years and years ago, it was an amazing place to go, and so much fun to build stuff. I would imagine that there is quite the liability issue though given way parents of today are such fear mongers….

Comment from ~flirt_22_~
Time: April 4, 2008, 10:45 am

wow those are interesting playgrounds i wouldnt want my child to play on those wow?

Comment from SOFTBALLDIVA001
Time: May 2, 2008, 12:51 pm

YEAH MY BROTHER AND FRIENDS MADE A FORT IN THE WOODS BEHIND OUR HOUSE AND I WILL SEND THE PIC AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. IT’S 2 STOORIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!