Playgrounds

Neighborhoods in New York City have built temporary "pop-up" playgrounds in an effort to encourage more physical activity among children.

New playground designs are shaking up public parks around the world. So long, slides, hello interpretive playscapes.

Planner Sharon Danks says that as playgrounds become less challenging due to concerns over liability, kids invent their own, far more dangerous uses for the equipment.

Community members in Philadelphia have taken over a languishing site and put it back into use as a temporary park space.

Yes, people walk around more, less obesity, etc. But a report shows that city kids are less frequently allowed outside to play for safety concerns.

A group calling itself the "Detroit Mower Gang" has gone rogue on the city's poorly maintained playgrounds, attacking them with weed wackers and riding mowers to get them back into shape for the city's kids.

A new Parisian park would cause American parents to go apoplectic, with a precarious slopes and a lack of rubber bumpers. It is the latest incarnation of the "adventure playground, says Alexander Trevi of Pruned.

NYC's Dept. of Education has committed to building 70 new playgrounds in the five boroughs.

The Watford Borough Council has voted that parents cannot play with their own children in local playgrounds because they haven't had a criminal background check.

Unstructured play is a mainstay of childhood. But dense urban areas offer fewer opportunities for free-form playtime, writes Alex Marshall. Kids have to take what they can get, and often it's not much more than an empty parking lot.

Advocacy group KaBOOM have launched a campaign to map play places across the U.S. called 100,000 Playspaces in 100 Days. The goal is to create a useful tool for planners for evaluating networks of parks and recreation.

Korean photographer Hosang Park's recent series exposes tiny, unknown 'parks' that are attached to housing developments around the world.

Want to get kids off the street? Build playgrounds on top of skyscrapers, like in this retro-future design from 1957's Mechanix Illustrated.

Architect David Rockwell has some new ideas about what makes a good public playground. With movable, buildable foam blocks, his experimental playground in Brooklyn gets kids actively and creatively involved in their play.