Liberlife Key Trend: Outdoor Playspaces

The importance of play as an emotional and physical booster in childhood and adult life is in the spotlight: discover five strategies for outdoor playspace design

Executive summary

Opportunity

Growing urbanisation, coupled with crises in global obesity and mental health, calls for greater focus on play areas that are primed to boost physical activity and emotional wellbeing. There is an economic imperative to address: the cost of the obesity crisis could reach $4.32tn annually by 2035, while The Lancet reports that lost productivity linked to anxiety and depression costs the global economy $1tn each year. With all this in mind, the UN declared June 11 International Day of Play from 2024 onwards. Find more inspiration on our Feed with #ChildsPlay, #PowerOfPlay and #Kidult.

Need to know

● In the last three years, the likelihood of young people having a mental health problem has increased by 50% in the UK, while studies show that adventurous play can have a significant impact on improving a child's emotional wellbeing

● According to a global study by LEGO, nine in 10 parents believe that play helps improve their child's self-expression, boosts confidence and provides a safe space to experiment without fear of failure. The same study finds eight in nine children feel

● they can be their true selves during playtime

● A recent UK medical study found that children with poor access to outdoor play areas at school were at higher risk of developing lifelong health problems The World Health Organization states physical inactivity is now common – 81% of adolescents and 27% of adults, with girls most affected (85% are inactive, vs 78% of boys)

● The World Obesity Federation has estimated that between 2020 and 2035, obesity in children and teens will double. By 2035, 51% of the global population (around four billion people) will be overweight or obese

STEPIC forecasts: Big Ideas 2024: Democra-sized and Code-Breaking; Big Ideas 2025: Strategic Imagination; Big Ideas 2026: Design for Need and Feel Appeal; Inter-Actions and Expanded Imagination A/W 24/25; Common Connections and Digitopia S/S 25; AltOptimism A/W 25/26

Key strategies

Climate-Adaptive: as global temperatures rise, designers must be increasingly mindful of the implications for outdoor play. This shift will drive the need for aft erdark playspaces

Joyful Expression: invigorate public buildings and outdoor spaces with kinetic street furniture and brightly coloured climbable sculptures that encourage social connection, creative engagement and positive interactions

Active Play: tackle the global inactivity crisis with bold play initiatives that challenge movement via a non-prescriptive approach

Inquisitive Nature: leverage play as an opportunity to educate children about the natural world, fostering a sense of stewardship for the planet through the use of natural materials and hands-on discovery

Agile Furniture: small, incidental playspaces can enliven urban and under-used areas, transforming conventional elements into an opportunity for spontaneous play

Joya is the first glow-in-the-dark playground, set in Texas (US)	The Nickerson Gardens playground designed by NBBJ and ESI Design in Los Angeles prioritises solutions for keeping cool, including misting poles and shade structures
Intentional lighting ensures play can continue after dark at Aalborg, Denmark	Wandering Pools is a prototype for a floating recreational public space for the UAE

Climate-Adaptive

The concept: rising global temperatures drives the need for day-to-night playspaces that can be used during cooler, evening hours. Explore responsible water use for misting poles, floating playgrounds and splash pads, using integrated circular water management systems.

Design details: create safe aft er-dark destinations that appeal to the public looking to play at cooler times of the day. Look to Nordic territories for inspiration on how to illuminate playgrounds at darker periods.

Investigate LED-embedded and solar-powered surfaces that come to life at night, and novel glow-in-the-dark materials. Use passive lighting that respects local biodiversity. Provide lots of sheltered areas – timber structures, canopied swings, climbing nooks and tunnels that provide fun respite from the elements. Ensure there are clear sightlines for supervision when lighting is low, such as semi-transparent blocks or perforated sheets.

Joyful Expression

The concept: create play structures and spaces that inspire spontaneous and joyful interactions. Take an all-ages #JoyfulExpression approach: introduce playground-inspired adult furniture such as swing seating, see-saws and roundabout-style benches in public and shared areas.

Design details: leverage sound, music, movement and #JoyousBrights to encourage social engagement, ease, creativity and collaboration. Landmark play sculptures in public spaces and buildings need to invite interaction – for instance, by coming alive via responsive lighting when physically activated.

CMF: take inspiration from childhood artworks with bold, bright primary colours and kaleidoscopic and geometric patterns. Introduce abstract, non-linear forms that feel abundantly expressive, such as squiggles, curves, spirals and doodles.

Duetti: Musical Furniture plays music in response to the movements of the sitter, and features integrated lighting to further activate the public space	Arborhythm is a series of installations outside SOMA in San Francisco. The large-scale, hornlike sculptures play a sonic soundscape of local recordings	Climb, Swing, Balance! Is a series of public playground installations presented as part of Southern Sweden Design Days 2024
Play Place, made for the London Festival of Architecture, is a supersized shape-sorting structure designed for creative and collaborative play	Squiggle, inspired by a childhood doodle, is a temporary installation constructed in London, UK from fl exible PVC ducting	"Aspirational, magical and a possible future for the city" is the space that Morag Myerscough built for Mini in London, UK, aiming to make visitors feel uplifted and inspired

Active Play

The concept: encourage movement and physical activity through adventurous play. Create risky, challenging, intuitive playspaces that push children and adults alike to explore their physical limits, inspired by gymnasiums and building sites.

Design details: blend public health with public #ArtInstallations with sculptural workout stations that serve as placemaking signposts. Bold playspace design must encourage adventurous play and intuitive exploration through non-linear play structures. Take elements from the construction yard – ladders, ropes, climbing chains – to achieve an unfinished, rugged aesthetic.

CMF: prioritise industrial materials to create a functional and durable playspace, including scaffolding, stainless steel, OSB, timber and boulders. Take colour inspiration from the setting as well with yellow, grey, black, red and aluminium to convey physicality and durability

Playing to Play is a sculptural workout station/outdoor playground experience by Mexican architect and artist Sofi a Elias for The Standard Hotel in NYC	Artist Mike Hewson created Rocks on Wheels, a purposefully challenging playspace at Southbank Boulevard, Melbourne	A timber frame armature doubles as a climbing structure at a visitor centre in Sankt PeterOrding, Germany
Recreational fi elds and skate ramps are key to the child-centric facilities at the Dotsss Children's Museum, Chengdu, China	Spontaneous curves and adventurous shapes encourage exploration at Instituto Brillamont pre-school, Mexico	Function meets form in the sculptural outdoor workout equipment created by My Equilibria

A natural playscape for Presidio, San Francisco, includes forms inspired by Presidio's natural and cultural history		Plans for Shenzhen Children's Hospital show play areas located within healing gardens
Thorndon Park Playground in Adelaide, Australia is inspired by the diverse local birdlife	A Sydney, Australia childcare centre offers a simple, nature-based playspace that encourages problem-solving and exploration	Imagination, nature and community collide at the Wired Scape playspace in Guangzhou, China

Inquisitive Nature

The concept: propose unrefined landscapes that spark curiosity for the natural world and environmental awareness. Hands-on exploration with simple, natural materials and a foraged approach ensure a stronger connection with the environment.

Design details: take inspiration from the local landscape and culture to develop playspaces that feel integrated into the community, working with local materials and topography to create immersive nature-centric environments. In the healthcare sector, healing gardens will become important as research underscores the links between health and exposure to the outdoors: create sheltered outdoor play areas that invite active exploration along with pockets of space for rest.

CMF: prioritise responsibly sourced wood and sustainable materials. Raw, untreated natural elements – fallen timber, rocks, bark – will provide tactile texture and local context. Uneven, organic forms need to reflect shapes found in nature, enhanced by a muted, earthy palette.

Agile Furniture

The concept: explore the need for moveable, multi-use street furniture that promotes public interaction and imaginative play.

Design details: reinvent the park bench as an opportunity for playful climbing or reclining. Imagine transformable structures – climbing frames by day, seating by night – fostering inclusive, all-ages engagement, responding to evolving urban environments. Encourage spontaneous activity through the concept of mobile play kits that can quickly be assembled or attached to existing elements to create instant playspaces.

CMF: introduce unexpected colours, forms and materials into urban environments that trigger curiosity while being mindful of durability and/or of disassembly and recyclability. Consider humourous and interactive street furniture as a playful placemaking or wayfinding solution.

Climbable organic shapes encourage interaction in the City of London, UK. The modules' core is made from OSB board and timber battens, clad with a 97% natural raw material, CO2-neutral linoleum and 100% natural cork panels
Bubblegum-pink donut chairs provide a playful colour pop at Prospect Park, NYC	Colourful abstract concrete blocks invite spontaneous play on the streets of Leon, Mexico	A mobile play kit for pop-up playgrounds in unused spaces