Play area

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Game science understands a play landscape to be an open area or a space that invites you to play. It can be a natural or artificially arranged area, open spaces or structured venues equipped with play equipment.

Natural play areas

There is no shortage of natural play areas. Due to the ingenuity of the children and young people, games are basically possible anywhere. Unfortunately, natural play areas are often not available for play or only to a very limited extent. The environment with its streets, squares, courtyards, forests, fields, streams, lakes, halls, apartments is usually predetermined for certain uses by adults, so that children's play is annoying, dangerous and undesirable. Nevertheless, numerous places can still be found where the restrictions have not yet taken hold. You just have to rediscover them:

Even today, street games are still possible or again possible in traffic-calmed streets with the acceptance of the residents and official protection . Castle ruins, forest clearings or rural settlements still allow, to a limited extent, terrain games and adventure searches in natural surroundings. The tendency, however, is clearly in the direction of delimiting the play areas from everyday life and creating reserves for the youth hungry for games, as the numerous prohibition signs show, which are often - not entirely unjustly - justified with the fear of destruction or claims for recourse in the event of accidents.

Designed play areas

The densely built-up, busy inner cities and the often narrow apartments furnished with valuable objects no longer allow free play. New, mostly artificial, play spaces have to be opened up for the children's need to play. A distinction must be made between municipal or institutionally provided and self-designed playgrounds.

Prepared playground

Playgrounds, toy libraries and game arrangements

City , forest , Robinson or adventure playgrounds already provided by the municipalities and cities for preschool children try to meet the children's needs for exciting games. There is also competition for the developmental psychological and game educational value of the individual facilities, which is reflected in rankings and contributes to improvements.

Amusement parks , game lands and toy libraries are commercial facilities in which are placed in a huge outdoor area and / or in sheltered areas diverse play opportunities in return for payment. They enjoy a large and constantly growing number of game fans of all ages.

In view of the increasingly narrow scope for children, especially in cities, initiatives such as the working group “Spiellandschaft Stadt e. V. Munich ”, which has made it its concern to improve the play world of children in the city and to provide corresponding play offers in parking lots, play streets , school yards or in swimming pools and parks. Universities, schools, kindergartens, clubs and child-friendly communities regularly offer play festivals on large open spaces , the play value of which, however, varies greatly depending on the qualifications of the organizers and animators .

The activities are condensed each year on May 28 to the UNESCO -sponsored World Play ( "World Play Day").

Virtual game landscapes

Since the dawn of the computer age , an almost unmanageable variety of fairy-tale, magical, exotic, bizarre artificial play landscapes can be conjured up on the screen using appropriate software , in which the game enthusiasts can play. In these virtual worlds with changing scenarios, the player can perceive, decisively and actively influence what is happening, cooperate with fellow players or compete with opponents.

The fictional fantasy landscapes and electronic games largely dominate the game today. Corresponding data programs represent a rapidly growing market. They are increasingly displacing natural play, even for children. You are exposed to a corresponding criticism. In order to mitigate the dangers of developing a pure consumer attitude when gaming, considerations have been made to start playing as early as the development process of the game programs and to playfully design simple computer games according to one's own ideas.

Self-designed playground

Before the era of virtual play landscapes and in phases of urban destruction and toy shortages, such as in Europe during and after the Second World War , gamers still had to largely prepare their playground themselves. This was done by using the streets with little traffic and free spaces for street games , which were prepared into playing fields with simple means. Ruins of houses, neglected gardens, trees, curbs , walls were included in the arrangements.

Since these spatial possibilities are severely limited today, the support of play-friendly adults who understand the wishes of children and young people is required:

Rooms have to be found and made available in which the children can create exciting play areas according to their own ideas, as independently as possible, but also with the participation of adults, such as a jungle , a circus arena or a gypsy camp with a variety of play options.

As far as society allows children, they usually design their own play worlds according to their needs in the immediate living environment, indoors, for example, by designing the playroom into a " robbers' nest ", and outdoors by setting up street games with chalk drawings and markings for jumping games in traffic-calmed residential areas.

Evelyn Lautz has presented an interdisciplinary project as part of a scientific work in which students, together with the children of a primary school and a local artist , spend weeks turning the boring playground of their school into an attractive playground.

Nadine Kutzli and Sabine Weiß describe a project in which students, as part of their teaching degree, work with schoolchildren to transform the sports hall into a jungle landscape for a weekend using all equipment and facilities . A camouflage net of the Bundeswehr and liana wallpapers create the dim frame for a separate play area, in which the chirping of cicadas and eerie jungle sounds can be heard, in which the children disguised as animals, Indians or Tarzan are clambering, climbing, rocking and crawling through "thickets “And move caves, solve quizzes and hear passages from Rudyard Kipling's bestseller about the jungle child Mowgli .

The authors M. Walther-Roche and A. Stock have published further examples of how adventure landscapes can be implemented in gyms. U. Höfele shows how even smaller rooms, such as a darkened room, can become an adventure terrain for the senses.

Educational appreciation

In his successful novel Momo, the children's book author Michael Ende plays off natural playgrounds against artificial, natural materials and commercialized toys . What matters most to him is the stimulation of the imagination and play creativity, which must grow out of the player and which must not block the play possibilities due to too tight programming of the toy. Undoubtedly true in the basic trend of the need to return to simple gaming opportunities, the club-side view, however, misjudges the forms of play that have been expanded by modern technology.

The game scientists Siegbert A. Warwitz and Anita Rudolf therefore propagate that the game repertoire should not be without a game that starts as early as possible, i.e. already with the construction of the playground, the play equipment and the game processes and thus brings the players to a holistically demanding game. In their opinion, the ability to play does not develop from playing ready-made games with a given set of rules and handling preprogrammed toys , but requires a return to the roots of play, which requires initiative, playful imagination, creativity and diverse physical and intellectual talents. The player must not degenerate into a consumer of commercialized gaming , into a pure end user (“user”), but should be the designer and changer, perhaps even the inventor of his games. Only then is the real value of playing revealed.

literature

  • Imbke Behnken: Urban play and street worlds . Contemporary witnesses and documents about childhood at the beginning of the 20th century . Weinheim: Juventa-Verlag 2006.
  • Günter Beltzig: Children's playgrounds with high play value , Bauverlag, Augsburg 1987, new edition: Das Spielplatzbuch , Spiel-Raum-Verlag 1998.
  • Michael Ende: Momo . A fairy tale novel. Stuttgart: Thienemann 1973; Munich: Piper 2009, ISBN 978-3-492-25349-9
  • U. Höfele: The dark room as an adventure playground for the senses , Dortmund 1995
  • M. Kaderli: Off-road games , Stuttgart 1997
  • U. Lange, Th. Stadelmann: Playground is everywhere , Freiburg 1995
  • Evelyn Lautz: Redesign of the school yard of the Rastatt-Ottersdorf elementary school to make it suitable for children and physical activity. An interdisciplinary project , Scientific State Examination Work GHS, Karlsruhe 2000
  • Silke Jensch: Nature as an occasion to play, play space and play partner , Scientific State Examination Work GHS, Karlsruhe 2001
  • Nadine Kutzli: Jungle experience. Create a jungle festival with students . Scientific state examination work GHS, Karlsruhe 1998
  • Nadine Kutzli, Sabine Weiß (arr.): Jungle experience . PU 7 of the series project teaching in schools and universities , ed. v. Siegbert A. Warwitz and Anita Rudolf, Karlsruhe 1998
  • M. Loibl, Y. Kawamura: Funny street games . Münster: Coppenrath 2010
  • Anita Rudolf, Siegbert Warwitz: Playing - rediscovered. Basics-suggestions-aids , Freiburg: Herder 1982
  • M. Walther-Roche, A. Stock: Adventure landscapes in the gym , Schorndorf: Hofmann 2001
  • Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Shaping play landscapes , In: Dies .: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 .
  • Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 .

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Game landscape  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Single receipts

  1. ↑ U. Lange, Th. Stadelmann: Playground is everywhere , Freiburg 1995
  2. ↑ Silke Jensch: Nature as an occasion to play, play space and play partner , Scientific State Examination Work GHS, Karlsruhe 2001
  3. ↑ Anita Rudolf, Siegbert Warwitz: Playing - rediscovered. Basics-suggestions-help , Freiburg: Herder 1982
  4. ↑ M. Loibl, Y. Kawamura: Funny street games . Münster: Coppenrath 2010
  5. ↑ M. Kaderli: outdoor games , Stuttgart 1997
  6. ^ G. Beltzig: Children's playgrounds with high play value , Augsburg 1987
  7. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Spielimpulse. How to arrange game situations , In: Dies .: On the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 , pp. 210–249
  8. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Immerse yourself in virtual worlds by playing , In: This: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 100-107
  9. ↑ Virtual games
  10. ↑ Sven Scheid: Game behavior, game content and game forms of today's school beginners - an empirical study . Scientific state examination work GHS, Karlsruhe 2000
  11. ^ WP Meyer: Growing up in simulated worlds. Computer games . Frankfurt 1992
  12. ↑ Th. Schmidt: Make computer games yourself . Augsburg 1995
  13. ↑ Imbke Behnken: Urban play and street worlds . Contemporary witnesses and documents about childhood at the beginning of the 20th century . Weinheim 2006
  14. ↑ Nadine Stumpf: Adventure in school sports. What children want and how they can be realized . Scientific thesis GHS. Karlsruhe 2002
  15. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Spiellandschaftenilden , In: Dies .: Vom Sinn des Spielens. Reflections and game ideas . Baltmannsweiler. 3rd edition 2014, pages 197-209
  16. ↑ Evelyn Lautz: Redesign of the schoolyard of the Rastatt-Ottersdorf elementary school to make it suitable for children and exercise. An interdisciplinary project , Scientific State Examination Work GHS, Karlsruhe 2000
  17. ↑ Nadine Kutzli: Jungle Experience. Create a jungle festival with students . Scientific state examination work GHS, Karlsruhe 1998
  18. ↑ Nadine Kutzli, S. Weiß (arr.): Jungle experience . PU 7 of the series project teaching in schools and universities , ed. v. Siegbert A. Warwitz and Anita Rudolf, Karlsruhe 1998
  19. ^ M. Walther-Roche, A. Stock: Erlebnislandschaften in der Turnhalle , Schorndorf 2001
  20. ↑ U. Höfele: The dark room as an adventure playground for the senses , Dortmund 1995
  21. ↑ Michael Ende: Momo . A fairy tale novel. Stuttgart (Thienemann) 1973; Munich (Piper) 2009
  22. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz / Anita Rudolf: What play means and what features characterize it . In: Dies .: The sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . Baltmannsweiler, 3rd edition 2014. Pages 18–22