A cheerful boy with curls climbs on the stainless steel octopus in La Pegaso Park in Barcelona

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Show all Playing in diversity Sustainable planning Design for Children's Playgrounds

Interview with Julian Richter Sen.

Inclusive Playgrounds: "We must respect being different"

No matter what a person looks like, what language they speak, and whether they are disabled or not – everyone can go everywhere and take part in everything. That is what inclusion is all about. But what does it mean for playground designers? And what does an inclusive playground look like? Bettina Schilling spoke to Julian Richter senior from Richter Spielgeräte about this.

Inclusive Playgrounds:

„Free to Play“

New guide helps local communities to open up play spaces for all

Free to Play – A guide to creating accessible and inclusive public play spaces launched by Maree Todd MSP, Minister for Childcare and Early Years.

Interview with Peter Hohenauer

Play Spaces as basic social and cultural services

Play is a basic element of our society. During play we develop our personality, learn to take risks, to tumble every once in a while and then get up again. A society that invests in education also needs good play spaces. For everyone. We spoke to Peter Hohenauer, play space planner, specialist author, board member of the Info Spiel e.V. association and inclusion expert from Munich, about the ideal playground, risks associated with playing and about why a playground is not just for children.

Play Spaces as basic social and cultural services

Child-friendly urban planning

How child-friendly should a city be?

When contemplating about the perfect place for children to grow up carefree and romp around in fresh air all day, Lindgren's Bullerby and Lönneberga immediately spring to mind. Very few children, however, grow up like that, let alone in the country at all. More and more people and therefore also children live in the city. But how child-friendly are urban areas? And: How does child-friendly urban planning work?

Life Cycle Assessment of a Playground

Richter Sustainability Road Map

A global awareness to environmental issues is growing day by day and everyone has to play his part: players who act on the market, consumers and public administrations. Richter Spielgeräte GmbH always made sustainability its mission, first of all through the choice to use, for its playground and play equipment, the natural material per excellence: wood.

Richter Sustainability Road Map

A contribution focussing on wood - by Julian Richter

Sustainable for over 50 years

Sustainability means, among other things, focusing on the material and its origin – for Richter Spielgeräte this is focusing on wood.

The playground as a garden for everyone

Nature experience

The term sustainability actually comes from forestry. Only so much wood was to be felled in the forest that the forest could grow back under its own power. Sustainable development in children is understood to include the ecological, economic, cultural and social dimensions. For the planner, this means designing an outdoor space that allows nature to be experienced in these four dimensions.

Nature experience

Towards a children's mind for a playground design

One of the challenges we have as adults, is that our mind has a habit of being habitual and we are not aware of our unconscious choices. The unconscious bias theory says, we don’t see things as they are – we see them as we are. That said, according to neuroscience, we have a way to work around that and exercise our minds not to fall into our habitual minds trap. We call it having a "beginners mind", which is like having an open and curious mind, like children do.

In conversation with a Playmaker

Three questions to Günter Beltzig

What exactly is "playing"? What is a "playground"?

GB: To play means to deal with oneself, with one's possibilities, needs and environment, to recognise one's limits and to make the best of everything. Play is the original form of learning. Learning not only with the mind, but also with the feeling, with the body, learning as a whole. And for this learning the child needs time, freedom and space, maybe a playground.

Three questions to Günter Beltzig

Children between nature and technology

Design Considerations for a Digital Age

In our digital era, children are bombarded with screen time activities. Their love for technology is apparent, and admittedly, what’s not to love? Technology has granted even the youngest of children access to the universe in the palm of their hand, and allows all users a sense of immediate satisfaction. With technology so readily available, it is easy to understand how some children find themselves fixated with being interactive on social media, and less so in person (traditionally, how generations of children before interacted with their friends). Imagine a younger version of yourself—always a helpful design technique, especially when creating playspaces—wasn’t “fitting in with the crowd” of the utmost importance, even if that now means you don’t actually have to see your friends to do so?