Play Everywhere
People don’t just want great parks and playgrounds. Kids and families are calling for play everywhere. Balanced and active play should be an easy choice for families, with abundant opportunities for play readily available throughout the normal routines of the day.
Getting enough play time can be especially difficult for children growing up in economically challenged communities. Our goal is to close the opportunity gap for kids in the Bay Area and provide a catalyst that will inspire communities to rethink play in order to ensure all kids get the play they need to thrive.
The playground is not the only place to play. It can happen in moments of downtime. Grocery store lines. Bus stops. Parking spaces. Laundromats. Sidewalks. Even the smallest of places can become playable opportunities.
Play can happen everywhere. Communities should explore making "dead time" (waiting at bus stops, laundromats, walking to school etc.) more playful. Cities have many undiscovered assets that can be used to fill their communities with play everywhere.
And proximity matters. Cities can create mini play destinations "around the corner." When parks and playgrounds are a bus ride away, they become special-occasion locations. Cities need to develop small, modest but right-around-the-corner options with interesting play structures.
Check out these examples of play everywhere and share your own – just use #playeverywhere in your social posts.
To be inspired by more images, check out KaBOOM!'s Pinterest.
KaBOOM! “Playful Cities”
- Peak Experience - Atlas Lab, San Francisco, CA
- Hopscotch Crosswalk - Bromo Tower District, Baltimore, MD
- Playful Sidewalks - Bring on Play, York, PA
- Stairway Stories - "Design that moves you”, Brooklyn, NY
- Red Swing Project - Red Swing Project, Austin, TX
Other Examples of Play Everywhere
- BREC on the Geaux - BREC, Baton Rouge, LA
- 78th Street Play Street - Jackson Heights Green Alliance, New York, NY
- Bubbleware - Rebar, San Francisco, CA
- chainlinkGREEN - International Design Clinic, Philadelphia, PA
- Come Out & Play Festival - Pittsburgh, PA
- Intersection Repair - City Repair, Portland, OR
- BOULEvard Ball - Studio On/Off, Brussels, Belgium
- Parklet - Better Block Newark, Newark, NJ
- playLAND - LIKEarchitects, Paredes de Coura, Portugal
- 21 swings - Daily tous les jours, Montreal, Canada
- WALK [YOUR CITY] - Multiple Locations
The representative project examples are for inspiration, however innovative and new ideas are highly encouraged. For more information on the research behind play everywhere, read about the work KaBOOM! and ideas42 conducted on Using Behavioral Economics to Create Playable Cities (Executive Summary)