09.04.2013 - Ausgabe: 2/2013

Promoting development outdoors - the Steilshooper Allee day care centre in Hamburg

By Dipl. - Ing. Kirsten Winkler, landscape architect and urban planner, Winkler-Landschaftsarchitekten

At the Steilshooper Allee day care centre, children of eight weeks to six years their new-found space step by step. The terrain is subdivided into functional areas, which support the children in the various phases of their development.

The “fishermen's jetty”, as the play area most resembling home, has been designed to enable even the youngest children to make the space their own, as independently as possible. With an integrated slope and little huts, it presents challenges for those still learning to crawl or walk. Through play, the children make their environment their own. As soon as the very little ones begin to roll, scrabble and crawl along, nothing should stand in their way. Exploring the environment independently! An example: Falls from up to 5 – 15 cm onto the meadow and of up to 25 cm into the sand have been made possible in this play area. No more than that! The 60 cm free fall height onto paving stones, which is permitted for this age group by the TÜV certification company, should be called into question. The wooden jetty elements were individually adapted to the terrain, with the corners smoothly rounded. The “fishermen's jetty” is a peaceful rolling play area accessible to all children. The space remains open for encounters and social learning in a group of mixed ages. The counter pole to this is the tree house at the opposite corner of the terrain for crèche children. It is a difficult climb for them, but still presents challenges for five-year-olds.

From play area to mobile play area

Small outdoor terrains require multifunctional concepts. The ‘dolphin post’ on the fishermen’s jetty secures mobile swing and climbing installations. In just a few simple steps, carers can adjust the available movements depending on the age and development of the children. The idea of a flexible ‘mobile play area’ was developed by the Hamburger Forum Spielräume initiative at the University of Hamburg. Developmental psychologists and movement therapists describe how important it is for children to first feel themselves, and criticise the very many deficits arising from a lack of sensory integration. The mobile play area not only offers opportunities for development that are more individual because they are more flexible, but also more effective psychomotor elements through a more varied choice of materials. Mobile fabric hammocks are more pleasant to the touch than standard hammocks made of Hercules rope, making better body awareness possible. Swinging in dark barrel swings improves the sense of balance (vestibular stimulation). Wobbly, removable swing boards require an even better ability to balance and more attentiveness to muscle coordination than do fixed standard swing seats.
The carers learn to handle the mobile elements and are made familiar with the corresponding safety rules in dedicated training. Its contents are agreed with the Unfallkasse Nord, an accident insurance firm. Moreover, for older children, the rope building site can be introduced as a construction game on the ‘dolphins’.

 

Water, sand, stones, wood – Natural materials as the master

Children first have to gather what e.g. Rolf Oerter classifies as body experience and experience with different materials in ‘functional play’.
The selection of natural materials for building is not therefore a matter of taste for children under four years, but meaningful in terms of development psychology. Materials from nature stimulate many of the senses. At the Steilshooper Allee day care centre, locust tree wood as it grows naturally has been chosen for the basic framework of play equipment, With Marcus Kretschmar as the wood designer, an individual experience of how the individual tree trunk has grown is possible. This results in a detailed variety of design that cannot be planned.
A watercourse with a pump has been built from natural stones. Here children experiment with water, sand, stones and soil. But the area is also important for construction games. Expensive channel constructions are not needed for this, but enough space for creative building with sand and water.
We do not regard the classic ‘play hill’ as out-of-date – on the contrary. If planned in the right way, it still functions to improve motor development in role play. ‘Beaten paths’ have been laid out in advance. Robust species of shrub such as willow, flowering raspberry or dogwood stabilise the sloping ground with their roots. Thornless blackberry brambles, elder and buddleia are also integrated. All non-toxic or even edible, of course! Thus the hill remains stable for a long time and generations of little tigers, horses or cowboys grow more skilful through play. And “incidentally” they get to know nature, observe it and use it.

Strengthening educational focal points

The division of outdoor space is a question of the educational concept and the age structure. Outside spaces should not only open up a wide range of possibilities for movement, but at the same time also promote the cognitive abilities of the child. And these are not mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary, as we know from psychomotricity. Nonetheless, the development of an overall concept requires priorities to be set.
One focus of the Steilshooper Allee day care centre is ‘education’. Making the football pitch smaller has created space for a nature trail. A cul-de-sac, which ended at the pitch fence, has been turned into a circular walk through the ‘undergrowth’. The carers have put together little ‘researchers’ cases’ with magnifying glasses and spades, and are already creating ‘educational offers’ for 2 to 3-year-olds in the crèche. They take with them on little voyages of exploration, finding earthworms, snails, small stones and nibbled leaves. Games with rules, including football, are played by those aged roughly between 4 and 5. Now that day care is increasingly being moved into schools, and with children starting school at an ever younger age, demand for large football areas in day care centres is falling.

Planning and implementing together

Without the specialist knowledge of experts on site, planning cannot succeed.
That’s why our planning is usually preceded by workshops or intensive discussions with the day care centre staff, including an analysis of use and the development of an overall spatial concept. However, this not only results in functional statements, but often also in the principles of a design concept. We are pleased when carers and planners, but also children and parents join in – and really enter into the spirit of things – from the first idea through to construction itself. It is our responsibility as planners to bring together all aspects to create a functionally acceptable and attractively designed whole.

 

Further background information:
Steilshooper Allee day care centre, Hamburg: http://www.elbkinder-kitas.de/de/kita_finder/kita/432
Responsible body: Vereinigung Hamburger Kindertagesstätten
Landscape architecture: Winkler-Landschaftsarchitekten
Subsidised as part of the ‘Aktive Stadtteilentwicklung’ programme of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
Design of movement construction site / ‘dolphins’: in cooperation with Ivo Hoin, Hamburger Forum Spielräume