Outdoors is cool. For years now, everything taking place outdoors has boomed.
By the middle of the century, the proportion of those of pensionable age will more than double, as emerges from a report by the United Nations. This results in a key fact: more movement offers for the whole population, in public space too. Municipal decision-makers, landscape architects and manufacturers are being called on to develop solutions.
Active park for all generations or generations park, garden of the generations or senior citizens’ fitness area, play area for adults or senior citizens’ play areas, multi-generation area or movement area of all age groups, multi-generation parks or multi-generation play areas, whether action trail or movement garden, fitness garden or movement trail, gymnastics and running circuit or outdoor fitness garden - the Germans are very creative when it comes to names, but all of these are spaces for health and the prevention of illness.
In the municipality of Lengerich, the success of the generations park is a foregone conclusion thanks to its diverse offer, and between 20 and 100 visitors can be found there at any time of day. Although the generations park has already been inaugurated, Wilhelm Möhrke of the "Offensive" town marketing association promises to continue fine-tuning the concept. “We will ask the population what is wanted and will add to the generations park accordingly", he reveals. “As soon as further donations have been received, it will definitely be possible to add more facilities. The park should grow further. When the benefits of a generations park become generally known, over time no municipality will be able to do without one. Generations parks are a small, but important piece in the jigsaw when it comes to finding socials responses to demographic development”, Mr. Möhrke continues. Lengerich is a good example, because the whole town has been and is involved in the project, be it via physiotherapy practices, the town marketing association, senior citizens’ clubs, sports clubs or youth groups.
It’s just the same in Geisenfeld. “A lack of opportunities to test and improve your mobility and performance without having to enter into obligations”, that's what our small team of volunteers took as the impetus to create a corresponding movement area in 2008. Our project “Movement Park on the Ilm”, which was opened to the public in 2010, is located at the centre of sports and school grounds and directly in the supra-regional Ilm Valley Cycle Route, is freely accessible and can be used by our fellow citizens and guests at all times. This multi-generation park, now equipped with 19 pieces of training and sports apparatus, offers people of all ages, all backgrounds, the fit and the unfit a possibility to use their leisure time meaningfully and in a way that will improve their health. For our schools and kindergartens, this movement offer is an ideal way of supplementing sports lessons, since no preparation time is needed. Thanks to the untiring efforts of the team, two thirds of the financing came from private donations and funding and one third from public funds. The land needed was provided free of charge by the council. The equipment and location of our movement park, as well as the involvement of schools, kindergartens and sports clubs, are the main factors that even after three years are ensuring a high level of acceptance among the population. “For the time being, no more movement areas in this form are planned for our town due to the size of its population”, said Herbert Eifertinger from Geisenfeld municipal council. Geisenfeld council has recognised that when it comes to health policy, this is the right way to promote fitness.
Planning
Surely there must also be “mayor memory areas”, if a fashionable "senior citizens' play area" is created on open countryside shortly before the election. Long-term planning is thus a decisive factor in acceptance by the municipality.
Norman Riede, riede landschaftsarchitektur: “Nowadays, no-one any longer has to be persuaded of the necessity and benefits of physical movement. Only the implementation leaves much to be desired. Membership of a sports club or fitness studio promotes sporting activity, but is not desired by everyone or possible for them. Here municipal offers can provide a good substitute or addition, because they are often free, provided outdoors, are often accessible at any time and can be used without membership of a club or registration.
Numerous facilities have been put into operation over many years. However, acceptance and the degree of use by the population have varied widely and in many cases been far lower than expected. This fact hurts. Not only because of the investments made, but also because of the missed opportunity.
What makes for the success of frequently used facilities? There are two main criteria: The quality of the movement offers and the quality of the chosen site.
The quality of the offers in the sense of their being appropriate, thought-through and suited to the surroundings , but also ergonomic, able to be used for serious training and visually attractive.
The quality of the site in the sense of surroundings appropriate for movement, a high-quality green site with areas that are not constantly exposed to the sun in an easily perceptible location.
Here it helps to identify a main target group for the facility and involve it in the planning. The planned selection of equipment should be examined critically and professionally or even tested by its potential users. Under these conditions, it is possible to create meaningful and well-used movement offers”.
Jobst Seeger, landscape architect: “In Germany, playgrounds anchored firmly in building law and public sports facilities form an inherent part of every municipality. But the population is changing, children spend more time playing on their computers and for various reasons adults prefer to train in a fitness studio rather than in a sports club. Taking account of demographic change is a task for the politicians. We as planners can also make a substantial contribution. The increasing number of people over 60 and those who cannot afford to participate in training offers of clubs for either financial or time reasons, are demanding a significant rethink from all planners and politicians. We plan attractive playgrounds, which are intended to make up for the loss of natural space for movement for our children. We thus also have to plan facilities that correspond to the needs of all generations.
For municipalities, a broad-ranging offer of different types of and possibilities for sport is an important factor in selecting a site. Here outdoor fitness facilities are now among the possibilities that are most coveted and attainable with modest resources.
The multi-generation issue only plays a subordinate role in this and is often viewed far too theoretically. Anyone who wants to keep fit will do so, regardless of how we name the facilities. It is completely obvious that the selection of apparatus for the main target group plays a major role. However, you cannot exclude a group of users from a public facility. A well-founded selection of the location and corresponding equipment will better address a particular target group or create a broad-ranging offer.
Over the coming years, in Germany things will not be like they are in China as far as the number of outdoor fitness trails is concerned, but the number of offers will increase. I do not regard an anchoring of fitness areas in building law to be purposeful, but rather a more generous definition of what is possible in play areas, for example fitness offers".
Tried-and-tested science
Planning. Use. Location. What is the most beautiful movement area worth if there is no transport connection? Or if no public amenities are present. If there is no toilet nearby. Multi-generation area, keep fit trail, movement trail – who is what? Questions are looking for answers, but a health-conscious life has a decisive effect on well-being and quality of life in old age. In particular, sufficient movement is essential if people are to remain physically mobile and mentally agile. Movement can, as medical studies show, be a key answer to many diseases common among the aged. In an ageing society, it is therefore a key priority to provide meaningful offers for preventing illness and especially promoting movement among senior citizens. The state government of Hesse therefore started trying out a movement trail for older people in summer 2011 in Hanau and Darmstadt. Together with the Landessportbund Hessen (Sports Association of Hesse), the Goethe University Frankfurt-on-Main, the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and the RheinMain Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences as well as two companies, Playfit and Playparc, the health effect of the trail was tested with test groups. The findings obtained from the higher institute of education were overwhelmingly positive. The participants reported that they had become more mobile, experienced a greater sense of safety in everyday life and enjoyed life more thanks to their contact with others in the group. The use of the apparatus supported the strengthening of the circulation, coordination and mobility. Moreover, the trails became one of the most popular meeting points in the municipality.
Numerous towns and municipalities in Hesse have meanwhile set off on the path of also developing such offers for senior citizens. In many cases, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the two test municipalities have been asked for advice. This is why, as part of the “senior citizens’ policy initiative” and in collaboration with all partners in the trials guidelines have been drawn up, whose aim is to support municipalities and other interested parties, such as associations, clubs, health insurers or companies, with practical tips on how to set up and use a movement trail. “Movement for health in old age – Guidelines for the establishment of movement trails”. The guidelines can be retrieved on the Internet.
Between 2009 and 2011, sports scientists and landscape planners in Vienna cooperated in a research and activation project to investigate who uses the movement apparatus in five parks and how the offer for the 60+ target group can be made more attractive. The project bearing the name “Let’s go out! Health-promoting “join in” actions for older men and women in movement parks" was subsidised with monies from the Fund for a Healthy Austria, the Austrian Sport Ministry and the City of Vienna. Observations, focus groups, movement instructions and facilitator training showed very clearly that many people of older generations have to overcome inhibitions before they can use these new offers.
“Essentially, there is increasing demand for this offer, and indeed international studies on movement activity among older people show that the current 60+ generation predominantly enjoys movement in a self-organised form and, most of all, outdoors. The demand is there. But right now, the movement offers still need more specific planning, tailored to the location and its users, and accompanying measures. To cut a long story short: a clean WC, a drinking fountain, some shade and pleasant tables and benches form part of an attractive environment and prevent the exclusion of people, who rely on these features. Instructions in an open group at a particular time with qualified trainers were very well accepted in Vienna and proved able to overcome many of the barriers referred to above. Light warm-up exercises and group games, a competent answer to the question “Can I get onto this air walker with a hip that has been operated on?” and laughing together about the comment of a nursery child on the pedalo “Look, now the old woman wants to have a go” make possible many things, which a man or woman would not even want to try out alone", says graduate engineer Rita Mayrhofer from the tilia technical office for landscape planning in Vienna, who accompanied the project.
Summary
Success factor planning and location. Movement trail, keep fit trail or multi-generation space? A location analysis is important because everything hinges on the selection of apparatus. Not to mention the safety aspects of servicing, maintenance and regular testing. Steffen Strasser, head of the new association “Fitness equipment outdoors” within the Federal Association of Playground Equipment and Leisure Facility Manufacturers (BSFH): “We can see that the need of people to move in public space has increased sharply in recent years. Unfortunately, there have also been developments that were not always good. As a sub-group of the BSFH, it is important for us that the movement spaces that are created are well planned in terms of quality and equipped properly. We want to serve as an information forum for municipal decision-makers and landscape architects. We welcome your questions!”
Municipal voices
Matthias Fischer, City of Mannheim, Sport and Leisure Department:
“The City of Mannheim has always kept an eye on developments in the area of movement spaces and sports facilities. Low-threshold offers outside organised sport in particular are gaining in importance for Mannheim too. Already in 2001, we held a survey about the sport behaviour of the people of Mannheim. This was repeated in 2011. Both were conducted in collaboration with the "Municipal Sport Development Planning" research centre of the University of Wuppertal. Citizens of Mannheim aged between 10 and 75 were questioned about their sport behaviour.
The findings confirmed the assumption that an increasingly large part of the 60+ generation takes part actively in sport and other forms of movement. Sport offers are therefore of ever greater importance to this population group. So, in Mannheim a keep fit trail was renovated in cooperation with the “Local Agenda 21”, the forest administration and the city authorities, and made fully functional in accordance with the latest research. Moreover, within the framework of the DOSB initiative with the Müller-Milch company, the City of Mannheim applied for a Müller® keep fit trail, which it then proved possible to inaugurate in 2009.
In future, conversion areas in Mannheim will also be of particular importance. In the approximately 510 ha area, movement spaces and sport opportunities for all generations will be assigned great value in planning”.
Renate Friedrich, City of Frankfurt/M., Office for Green Spaces:
“Open air spaces for senior citizens are being created and fitness areas for those with sporting ambitions are being installed in Frankfurt. These facilities are being accepted well and often enthusiastically by the citizens. In our experience, the focus is less on the "multi-generational" and more on "a space for adults" that children can then also use.
The spaces are used for movement and meeting. They should not be created per 10,000 inhabitants. That kind of generalisation is contradicted by the spatial conditions, which very often do not exist in particular cases. Most suggested locations are, in fact, unsuitable. The smallest areas quickly appear to be overcrowded and do not fulfil their recreational function. Every year, approx. 2 open-air areas for senior citizens and 1-2 fitness areas are created in Frankfurt”.
Uli Burchardt, Lord Mayor, City of Konstanz:
“Movement does us good! Sport and movement as important parts of our society support, for example a healthy lifestyle, promote the social and physical development of children and foster social contacts. Health, fitness, fun, lifestyle and the experience of nature are motivations that encourage people to devote their leisure time to movement. Thus according to a recent study, about ninety per cent of the citizens of Konstanz are physically active and take part in sport at least once a week. It is therefore very important to create movement spaces and green areas and to offer opportunities for sport if we want to meet the needs of our citizens.
Thus two sports paths and a sports park have already been created for senior citizens. Numerous playgrounds and playing fields are available to children and young people for play and sport. Moreover, the baths of Konstanz, and in particular the lidos, offer many opportunities for sport and movement.
A sport development study with a citizen survey conducted in 2012 shows the engagement of the authorities in developing up-to-date and needs-based offers. The City of Konstanz will also continue to make its contribution to protecting the health and improving the quality of life of its citizens.”
Frank Schwarzkopf, Weißwasser Council:
“Essentially, every additional possibility is welcome that guarantees movement offers for members of all generations and whose maintenance is also affordable. This can be an enrichment or close existing gaps particularly where there are no alternatives.
However, each municipality has to decide for itself the extent to which it maintains certain offers, above all from the perspective of specific conditions and financial scope.
In Weißwasser, which won an award as the best town for sport in 2012, roughly every sixth inhabitant, from small children to senior citizens, is a member of a sport club.
Additionally, people of almost every age keep fit individually and without organisation through jogging and cycling.
However, in times of demographic change, clubs are the best prerequisite for promoting the prevention of illness and the preservation of health. Multi-generation play areas ordered by the council would initially indeed be an economic boost for architects and manufacturing companies, but in terms of their importance and substantive role in the development of children, not be comparable with children's playgrounds, of which several dozen exist in Weißwasser.
Over the past three years alone, three new children's playgrounds have been created in the district called “the social town”. Where fitness trails already exist, these are primarily an addition. If the local conditions are right, they can be helpful and meaningful, but do not e.g. solve the problem of isolation when no accompanying structures exist, and they may even promote 'ghettoisation’".
Otmar Heirich, Lord Mayor of Nürtingen:
“Together with our committees and a very committed citizenship, which is grouped into different working groups, our municipal authorities always endeavour to promote innovative projects and, if possible, turn them into reality. In Nürtingen, we have an extremely competent partner close to us in the form of the Nürtingen-Geislingen University. For example, together with students of the urban planning department, initial sketches of ideas for a citizens’ park on the “Galgenberg”, a green oasis on the margins of the town centre, were elaborated. Movement areas for young and old are to be developed and created there. A further project, currently being implemented by the town's civil engineering department, is a children's play trail within the town. But in the past too, playing fields, a dirt trail and a keep fit trail have, for example, been promoted here in Nürtingen. In addition to this, I should mention the many forms of support for the different club offerings provided by the council’s institutions and facilities.
With our newest venture, the Integrated Urban Development Project, we want to actively involve our citizens in urban development through a variety of workshops. In the individual theme areas can be found the keywords “family and child-friendly”, “inclusion” or “more urban green spaces”. Our citizens are thus able together to express their desires regarding their town. With the involvement of council departments and those at the top level of administration, it will then be the task of the committees to implement individual bodies or concepts”.
David Baier, Federal City of Bonn Department Head for the Office for Urban Green Spaces:
“Whether fitness trail or multi-generation movement facilities. The question if one is for or against comparable facilities should, in my opinion, always be addressed to the starting point of the respective urban space and the potential groups of users. Within the framework of answering these questions for public, urban spaces, what is required is professional, farsighted expertise and technical knowledge. The large group of suppliers of very wide-ranging weatherproof fitness apparatus, rather like in the toy market, may easily give the impression that simple solutions can be found for every situation. Consequently, for some years there has been the repeated wish to equip many remaining open spaces, not yet provided with equipment or equipped as a children’s play area, with fitness apparatus. I believe that there is in fact a further developed demand for fitness and movement facilities, which are indeed being equipped with corresponding apparatus in the public spaces of Bonn too. However, when weighing up the many and varied claims on urban spaces, the people responsible for those spaces must take account of e.g. aesthetic and functional claims. Here only a holistic planning approach can distinguish between the satisfaction of a short-lived trend and the actual meaningfulness of a new fitness facility, equipped with special apparatus. Fitness activities for all generations, i.e. often movement in public spaces, already takes place not only in Bonn in many different forms, for example in the form of urban gardening in the old town, games of boules in the city park or on special fitness equipment on the ‘Brüser Berg’”.
Fabian Giesder, Mayor of Meiningen:
“For the town of Meiningen, the issue of “play areas for all generations” plays an important role. We are busy preparing a joint project with a BA student of the University of Leipzig, who is working out a design for a multi-generation play area and keep fit trail in the heart of our town. We are just examining the extent to which an existing playground can be redesigned or whether to implement this project at a new location. In any case, we are interested in creating an attractive movement area not only for the children of our town, but for all generations".
Dietrich Krätschell, City of Regensburg, Parks Department, Head:
“When pursuing the goal of creating incentives and offers for movement, it seems to me that to narrow that down to play areas and fitness trails is a mistake. A better approach is to examine and approach matters in a multilayered way. Urban planning and the planning of open spaces, which provide attractive urban and landscape structures, form the basis for being able to create spaces for play, sport and experiences as well as routes for slow traffic (pedestrians, cyclists) of a sufficient quantity and quality. Urban structures of this kind also go on functioning when planning trends have passed and manage without being “fully furnished”.
Nonetheless, I also regard the selection and development of offers tailored to specific groups of users as being important. In my opinion, these should not contradict each other, but be linked meaningfully with each other.
In any case, I see ballpark figures or quotas for offers as being a useful guide. However, in no way can they replace integrated urban development and the planning of open spaces.
In short: the Regensburg Parks Department does not have a patent remedy when it comes to creating incentives for movement, but endeavours to identify integrated concepts and solutions".
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