HO-153
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
HORTICULTURE DEPARTMENT 
COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA 47907
Planning a Play Area in Your Residential Landscape Design
by Greg Pierceall, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
Planning is essential to properly landscape a home, whether starting from scratch or planning around existing features. Many homeowners plan their landscape needs in stages, often based upon family makeup (whether or not there are children living at home) and upon financing (spreading the costs over a number of years).
If there are children at home, a play area can be incorporated into the landscape design. Properly planned, this play area will relate to the overall landscape plan, serve the children’s play needs, be within the budget limitations, and provide safe, fun learning experiences.
This publication will discuss the concept of play and how ideas about play are changing. Also included are considerations you should make when planning a play area for the home.

What is Play All About?
Play is a natural activity. While the end product of play is fun, it should also be challenging. Learning physical, mental, and social skills are important parts of a child’s play experience.
Concepts about play and the play environment are changing. The traditional asphalt and concrete pads equipped with slides, swings, and jungle gyms are being replaced with more creative and visually pleasing "play-spaces" or "creative play areas." Wooden platforms, ramps, ladders with accessory tires, ropes, and slides comprise the creative play area. Construction materials range from wooden timbers to recycled utility poles. Active play, such as running, climbing, sliding, and swinging, is conducive to this "new" environment, as is passive play, such as building sand castles and role playing.
What brought about this change toward creative play areas? There were many factors, but group interaction and safety were important considerations. The traditional "swing set/sandboX" play area was usually designed for singular use; that is, each piece of equipment was pre-designed to be used by only one child at a time. For example, the slides were narrow and suitable for only one person; the sandbox was cramped, big enough for only one or two small children.
In contrast, creative play areas provide a wide range of activities suitable for single or group interaction. For instance, children climb up to a slide that is wide enough for two; then they slide down together side by side. Sand "areas" as opposed to the sandbox provide for group activities. Swings can be for one or as many as two or three. Children move from one activity to another without conflicts.
Potentially hazardous steel equipment and concrete slabs are being replaced with new, safer construction materials. "Creative" playspaces are safer and more challenging for active children.

Planning the Play Area
Planning considerations
Keep the following points in mind when you begin to plan your residential play area:
•	The ages and developmental capabilities of the children and how play will reflect these capabilities
•	Safety in the play area must be planned for
•	How the play area will fit into your master site plan
•	Construction and surfacing materials are important to the safety and utility of the play area
•	Your needs in relation to your budget