Designing an Adaptive Obstacle Course
Can we create an adaptive obstacle course where an adult with the full command of their body can run alongside a participant in a wheelchair or with a prosthetic… and both be able to have a physically challenging and engaging experience?
This was one of the most interesting design problems presented to me in the last few years.
The challenge wasn’t just about creating an accessible play experience, but an inclusive one. Accessible play experiences enable individuals in wheelchairs or with prosthetics to use play equipment and maneuver spaces safely. Inclusive play experiences go beyond and provide opportunities for individuals of all abilities to interact and play together.
Furthermore, I’ve seen plenty of accessible play spaces that are just boring. I believe we have advanced far enough in the design world to really begin thinking about how to design dynamic surfaces and sensory-rich spaces that allow both the 3 year old to play alongside the 13 year old, by wheel or foot.
So, with the Movement Creative and in collaboration with ACG and the NYC Department of Transportation Summer Streets Initiative, I designed the pilot version of the Adaptive Obstacle Course- an all-ages, all-abilities, wheel-chair accessible ‘pop-up’ obstacle course. Each element in the course was envisioned to be easily modifiable for the user body as needed, with safety and rigging systems designed into some of the more complex obstacles requiring prolonged hanging such as our canon ball alley, monkey bars, and traverse climbing wall. I also wanted to iterate a new version of a wooden pump track, typically used by bikes, to provide a combined walking, jumping, and riding challenge.
However, for this initial pilot build we had limited funding and faced some unique challenges when moving into the construction phase, especially since this was to be a temporary (less than 12 hours) built on the streets of NYC! We were limited to bringing some of the most modular of our equipment and limiting the roll out of rigging and larger build components.
Despite the financial and timeline restrictions, our team was able to create several new obstacles, including the rumble strips and dual-balance beams, which required both foot and wheel to navigate across. These two obstacles in particular were simple to build but challenging for all participants. The lily pads also ended up being a hit, as people could choose their own way of crossing — jumping, crawling, running, or navigating around.
Our team of volunteer facilitators were also awesome, providing open-ended guidance to participants and challenging everyone to find ‘their own way’ over, under, and through our course. I deeply believe that for design to really inspire and enable play, it must be paired with a community and culture that encourages self-expression, risk taking, and freedom to ‘rewrite the rules’ together.
Excerpts from Playing For Our Lives→
“According to research conducted by Play England, 71% of adults say they played out in the street every day when they were children. For today’s children that figure is only 21%.”
This is one of those statistics that really hit home for me and highlights the profound change in attitude and experience of youth today. In this short article, Inez Aponte goes on to discuss the sorry state of play, the decline of the free-play childhood, and her own small act of defiance against the unhappy transformation.
Inez first highlights her experiences of childhood in New York–“When I was growing up in New York in the 1970s any free space would quickly become an opportunity for play – empty lots, rooftops, alleyways, even the space between cars or on bonnets – the streets were our domain, we occupied them. Our instincts were not easily subdued and one might argue that irrepressible play spirit brought a sense of freedom into our overcrowded cities, making them a bit more human, a bit more joyful and a bit more connected.”
While this spirit is still captured in emergent modern sports such as parkour, there is no denying what she soon follows up with:
“Children are now more anxious than they were during the Great Depression or the Cold War. Under mounting pressure from educational policy makers, “childhood has turned from a time of freedom to a time of résumé building.”
In Defiance of the Decline of Play
There is a lot of gems in this short article, but a few highlights are especially around the subversive and defiant quality that play has seemed to taken on in our modern society.
“In a world where so many aspects of our lives have been commodified, spending an afternoon having fun together felt like an act of defiance. Defiance of a culture that tells us that value is determined by a price tag. Defiance of a story that tells us that we are only worth what we produce. Defiance of a system that tells us that billboards have more right to our public spaces than people. “
“…Play is our birthright. Whatever age we are, from our first to our final breath, we have a right to space and time that is free for experimentation, joy, creativity and connection, without any agenda. Our children know this as they rebel against a world dominated by test scores and spreadsheets. “
Play is Political
“Real play, like real freedom, cannot be appropriated into the corporate matrix. It is by its nature anarchic and therefore a powerful tool for social change. “
“We must occupy with play the spaces that belong to us as citizens, taking down both real and metaphorical billboards that dominate our towns and our inner landscapes. “
Join the dialogue
The world of play is exploding, with books, articles, and conferences popping up all over. From Stuart Browns book on Play to events like Counterplay and the US Play Conference. There are numerous online forums through facebook that have emerged as well, serving as spaces of exchange and conversation.
Aspen Institute Project Play
US Play Coalition + Ambassador Network
Counterplay FB group
“No matter how long ago it was since we allowed ourselves, somewhere inside we are always ‘ready to play’. All it takes is an invitation.” – Inez Aponte
“When you place one of these play-deprived animals in a somewhat novel, somewhat frightening environment they overreact with fear. ( …) They alternately freeze with fear and lash out with inappropriate and ineffective aggression. They don’t learn to respond to the social signals of the other animal.”
Peter Gray, psychologist and author, describes in his 2014 TED talk how animals who have been prevented from playing during early development become socially and emotionally crippled.
“Organizers of public play events of magnitude tend to forget that what they are doing is so radical, so fraught with political significance. Should they remember, they just might be able to appreciate how far their events reach beyond the fun they create. It’s fun, all right. New games. Old games. But it’s more than all that. It’s a social movement.” – Bernard DeKoven
Play is Powerful! Bridging Loneliness Through Active Intergenerational Communities→
Why is #play powerful? Because it can connect people through time and across generations. A kid and a senior can share a memory over a streetgame played in youth and for a moment connect as humans, glimpse into a possible future and the forgotten past.
Intergenerational community is rare but incredibly powerful when it comes to creating possibilities, vision, health, hope, and joy.
Parkour is one of those unique spaces that can truly support intergen community. I look forward to the next 10, 20, 50+ years of movement and play in my life, and to be able to both watch and be apart of helping guide culture as our diverse leaders age up and new ones emerge. I am so inspired by Julie Angel s messaging around positive aging, the parkour over 40 fb group, the growth of PKMove / playful aging / Forever Young programs (including one we are doing with PKV in 2019) and the numerous practitioners (some who became best friends, my mentors, My students) I’ve met over the years through events and practice.
And mostly I am so so grateful to be apart of a sport / discipline / community that I can be apart of no matter how old I get, no matter how my body changes, no matter the place I am, no matter the money I make, no matter obstacles I face. There are so very few legitimate, meaningful communities and outlets like that in life–spaces without limitations or rules around participation.
It truly inspires me to ask more of my self, my body, my practice, my city, and my life, because I see others, older and younger, doing the same. And as a person, I more deeply understand my value as a human in this larger ecosystem–as a student/teacher, as a learner/leader–evolving, maturing, transforming.
We are neither young or old, we are human! Let’s play together.
The Overprotected Kid and Barriers to Play
Recently the Atlantic there was an article released on
“One very thorough study of “children’s independent mobility,” conducted in urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods in the U.K., shows that in 1971, 80 percent of third-graders walked to school alone. By 1990, that measure had dropped to 9 percent, and now it’s even lower.
When you ask parents why they are more protective than their parents were, they might answer that the world is more dangerous than it was when they were growing up. But this isn’t true, or at least not in the way that we think. For example, parents now routinely tell their children never to talk to strangers, even though all available evidence suggests that children have about the same (very slim) chance of being abducted by a stranger as they did a generation ago.”
⭐Maybe the real question is, how did these fears come to have such a hold over us? And what have our children lost—and gained—as we’ve succumbed to them?⭐
Failing Neighborhood Parks→
“…because neighborhood parks are rarely designed with urban health in mind, these spaces—which the study defines as anywhere from two to 20 acres—often don’t fulfill their potential as pieces of public health infrastructure.”
the atlantic
We need to expand our vision beyond simple walking paths and benches–the most common and primary park features–and start building activity landscapes that engage our senses, brains, and bodies.
Instead of confining play to the playground, embed it into the everyday, for everyone.
Designing For Play
A few weeks ago I had a chance to jump on to the The Human Animal Podcast with Matt. This is part 1, where we talk a ton about design and play, including:
Developing Play Vision
The Interplay of Play and Design
What many gyms miss out on when designed
How to Craft a Play Session
The Importance of Inviting Others to Play