Designing for Children sponsored the design and construction of innovative play spaces for children inside of three community gardens in Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. 

impact

Background

Community gardens offer a particularly valuable solution to the lack of safe, accessible, and developmental appropriate outdoor space for young urban children. These small, restricted- access oases, overseen by watchful community residents, are often safer than public parks in many communities. Community gardens are often more conveniently located to residential neighborhoods than regional parks. Many gardens also contain a variety of plant life offering interesting learning opportunities for children.

Over the past several years the construction and maintenance of playgrounds in New York City’s public parks has been curtailed due to ongoing budget cutbacks, and many public playgrounds are rightly perceived by parents as unsafe to visit. New York City is not alone in this problem; children's safety in streets, parks and playgrounds is increasingly threatened in many urban areas, and children in low-income neighborhoods are often those most lacking in access to safe play space.  

The community gardens that now thrive in low-income neighborhoods offer a safe environment for outdoor activities for young children.  Because they were created by residents, many of these gardens are already fenced, clean, well maintained and filled with the watchful eyes of parents and neighbors.  They act much like a collective backyard, considered part of the home and cared for by residents. Community gardens have already begun to take on roles traditionally played by community centers. This project will help expand the current function of community gardens and will promote and support the critical role these “volunteer gardens” play in their communities.

process

Working in partnership with the Children's Environments Research Group, the Design Trust for Public Space awarded three fellowships to designers to create demonstration play areas incorporating CERG’s research in three New York City community gardeners. Bill and Mary Buchen worked with the Fordham/Bedford Lotbusters Garden in the Bronx, Kate Dodd with the East New York Success Garden in Brooklyn, and Katie Winter with the ARROW Community Garden in Queens.

These studies demonstrated the overwhelmingly positive effects that certain activities, such as sand building, earth play, play-acting and simple contact with nature have on early childhood development. These activities promote creative, social, and sensory development in very young children, in contrast to traditional playground equipment (swings, slides, climbing frames, etc.) which emphasize gross-motor activity and require constant hands-on supervision. The garden play areas include elements such as shelter structures and playhouses with benches, tables, chalkboards, as well as sand and water areas and planting beds.

The short project publication combines the lessons from the design and building of the demonstration projects together with CERG’s research on child development and its efforts to create children’s spaces in community gardens. It is intended to serve as a beginning guide, with basic step-by-step instructions, for gardeners and parents interested in creating similar areas in their own communities.