Not Just Playing Safe

Aditi Agrawal and Anjali Menon go beyond conventional swings and slides to create customized playgrounds that are fun, safe, and developmentally appropriate.

When did the idea of designing play areas first cross your mind?

AA: Anjali and I are batch mates from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. While studying Furniture Design, we got a really good opportunity to understand different materials and structures. It was all very hands on, so we could literally see what works and what doesn’t. During the last academic semester, we had a classroom project called ‘Design for Special Needs’ for which we were supposed to design for people whose requirements were slightly different from the mainstream population. We visited many special schools to do research, including the Blind People’s Association (BPA), Ahmedabad. BPA had children with different kinds of intellectual and physical limitations. While sitting through their classroom sessions, we realized that the children had never gone outdoors to play! There were two reasons for this - the existing playground equipment was unsafe for them, and there is a huge social stigma attached to disability and therefore the parents would never take them outdoors to play.

We decided to make a playground in the school campus to give the children an experience of playing outdoors. Our first instinct was to make the play equipment safe by adding seat belts and ramps, but while this would make the area safe for the special needs children, it would not attract the other children. That’s when we started examining what ‘play’ really is. We talked to various child experts, psychologists, occupational therapists and educators to understand the importance of play. We realized that play is not a mindless activity. It definitely is for leisure but it is not merely for leisure. It is also not limited to physical activities. For children, playing is nature’s way of developing their brain. And for children with sensory limitations, play is a great way to develop their residual senses.