Children’s opportunities for play in the built environment: a scoping review

Table 2. Selection stages of the literature search.

Table 3. Main themes between research- and design-oriented approaches.

Table 4. Overview of how play is conceptualised and operationalised (categories adapted from Whitebread et al. Citation2017 and Zosh et al. Citation2018). * = play used as a medium in the research/design process.

Table 5. Categories of children’s involvement.

Table 6. Mapping of spatial settings and scales.

Jelić, A., M. Martin, L. L. H. Laursen, T. D. O. Tvedebrink, L. B. Fich, and L. I. Oehlwein. 2020. Children, Play, and the Built Environment: What Can we Learn from co-Creation and Embodied Cognitive Science? Billund: Capital of Children Playful Minds.

Susa, A. M., and J. O. Benedict. 1994. “The Effects of Playground Design on Pretend Play and Divergent Thinking.” Environment and Behavior 26 (4): 560–579.*

Storli, R., and T. L. Hagen. 2010. “Affordances in Outdoor Environments and Children’s Physically Active Play in pre-School.” European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 18 (4): 445–456.*

Azlina, W., and A. S. Zulkiflee. 2012. “A Pilot Study: The Impact of Outdoor Play Spaces on Kindergarten Children.” Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 38: 275–283.*

Dyment, J., and T. S. O’Connell. 2013. “The Impact of Playground Design on Play Choices and Behaviors of pre-School Children.” Children’s Geographies 11 (3): 263–280.*

Luchs, A., and M. Fikus. 2013. “A Comparative Study of Active Play on Differently Designed Playgrounds.” Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning 13 (3): 206–222.*

Jongeneel, D., R. Withagen, and F. T. J. M. Zaal. 2015. “Do Children Create Standardized Playgrounds? A Study on the gap-Crossing Affordances of Jumping Stones.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 44 (December): 45–52.*

Prieske, B., R. Withagen, J. Smith, and F. T. J. M. Zaal. 2015. “Affordances in a Simple Playscape: Are Children Attracted to Challenging Affordances?” Journal of Environmental Psychology 41 (March): 101–111.*

Lerstrup, I., and C. van den Bosch. 2017. “Affordances of Outdoor Settings for Children in Preschool: Revisiting Heft’s Functional Taxonomy.” Landscape Research 42 (1): 47–62.*

Morrissey, A.-M., C. Scott, and M. Rahimi. 2017. “A Comparison of Sociodramatic Play Processes of Preschoolers in a Naturalized and a Traditional Outdoor Space.” International Journal of Play 6 (2): 177–197.*

Hyndman, B., and L. Mahony. 2018. “Developing Creativity Through Outdoor Physical Activities: A Qualitative Exploration of Contrasting School Equipment Provisions.” Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning 18 (3): 242–256.*

Kyttä, M. 2002. “Affordances of Children’s Environments in the Context of Cities, Small Towns, Suburbs and Rural Villages in Finland and Belarus.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 22 (1–2): 109–123.*

Kyttä, M. 2004. “The Extent of Children’s Independent Mobility and the Number of Actualized Affordances as Criteria for Child-Friendly Environments.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 24 (2): 179–198.*

Jansson, M. 2015. “Children’s Perspectives on Playground use as Basis for Children’s Participation in Local Play Space Management.” Local Environment 20 (2): 165–179.*

Herrington, S., and K. Studtmann. 1998. “Landscape Interventions: New Directions for the Design of Children’s Outdoor Play Environments.” Landscape and Urban Planning 42 (2–4): 191–205.

Zamani, Z. 2016. “‘The Woods is a More Free Space for Children to be Creative; Their Imagination Kind of Sparks out There’: Exploring Young Children’s Cognitive Play Opportunities in Natural, Manufactured and Mixed Outdoor Preschool Zones.” Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning 16 (2): 172–189.*

Adams, J., J. Veitch, and L. Barnett. 2018. “Physical Activity and Fundamental Motor Skill Performance of 5-10 Year Old Children in Three Different Playgrounds.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 15 (9): 1896.*

van Liempd, H., M. J. A. Ine, O. Oudgenoeg-Paz, R. G. Fukkink, and P. P. M. Leseman. 2018. “Young Children’s Exploration of the Indoor Playroom Space in Center-Based Childcare.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 43 (2nd Quarter): 33–41.*

Malone, K. 2013. ““The Future Lies in our Hands”: Children as Researchers and Environmental Change Agents in Designing a Child-Friendly Neighbourhood.” Local Environment 18 (3): 372–395.*

Bosco, F. J., and P. Joassart-Marcelli. 2015. “Participatory Planning and Children’s Emotional Labor in the Production of Urban Nature.” Emotion, Space and Society 16 (August): 30–40.

Caro, H. E. E., T. M. Altenburg, C. Dedding, and M. J. M. Chinapaw. 2016. “Dutch Primary Schoolchildren’s Perspectives of Activity-Friendly School Playgrounds: A Participatory Study.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13 (6): 526.*

Saridar Masri, S. 2018. “Integrating Youth in City Planning: Developing a Participatory Tool Toward a Child-Friendly Vision of Eastern Wastani – Saida.” Alexandria Engineering Journal 57 (2): 897–909.*

Zhou, X., D. Li, and L. Larsen. 2016. “Using web- Based Participatory Mapping to Investigate Children’s Perceptions and the Spatial Distribution of Outdoor Play Places.” Environment and Behavior 48 (7): 859–884.*

Kyttä, M., M. Oliver, E. Ikeda, E. Ahmadi, I. Omiya, and T. Laatikainen. 2018. “Children as Urbanites: Mapping the Affordances and Behavior Settings of Urban Environments for Finnish and Japanese Children.” Children’s Geographies 16 (3): 319–332.*

Lopes, F., R. Cordovil, and C. Nato. 2018. “Independent Mobility and Social Affordances of Places for Urban Neighborhoods: A Youth-Friendly Perspective.” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2198): 1–21.*

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Clark, A. 2007. “A Hundred Ways of Listening: Gathering Children’s Perspectives of Their Early Childhood Environment.” Young Children 62 (3): 76–81.*

Şahïn, B. E., and N. T. Dostoǧlu. 2012. “The Importance of pre-Schoolers’ Experience in Kindergarten Design.” Metu Journal of the Faculty of Architecture 29 (1): 301–320.*

Christidou, V., I. Tsevreni, M. Epitropou, and C. Kittas. 2013. “Exploring Primary Children’s Views and Experiences the School Ground: The Case of a Greek School.” International Journal of Environmental and Science Education 8 (1): 59–83.*

Xu, L., and P. Izadpanahi. 2015. “Creative Architectural Design with Children: A Collaborative Design Project Informed by Rhodes’s Theory.” International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation 4 (3–4): 234–256.*

Robbé, F. 2017. “Designing with Children: A Practitioner’s Perspective.” In Designing Cities with Children and Young People: Beyond Playgrounds and Skate Parks, edited by K. Bishop, and L. Cokery, 177–193. New York, NY: Routledge.*

Dimoulias, K. 2017. “At the “Center”: Young People’s Involvement in Youth Centers from Design to Usage.” In Designing Cities with Children and Young People: Beyond Playgrounds and Skate Parks, edited by K. Bishop, and L. Corkery, 194–206. New York, NY: Routledge.*

Katoppo, M., and P. Valencia. 2017. “Empower the Future: The Inside Story of Building Creative Space for sub-Urban Kampong’s Children.” In In Research Into Design for Communities, Volume 2: Proceedings of ICoRD 2017, edited by A. Chakrabarti, and D. Chakrabarti, 529–541. Singapore: Springer Nature.*

Mintzer, M., and D. Flanders Cushing. 2017. “Engaging Children and Adolescents in Local Decision-Making: Growing Up Boulder as a Practical Model.” In Designing Cities with Children and Young People: Beyond Playgrounds and Skate Parks, edited by K. Bishop, and L. Corkery, 207–222. New York, NY: Routledge.*

Itenge-Wheeler, H., H. Winschiers-Theophilus, A. Soro, and M. Brereton. 2018. “Child Designers Creating Personas to Diversify Design Perspectives and Concepts for Their own Technology Enhanced Library.” In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Interaction Design and Children – IDC ’18, 381–388.*

Leddy-Owen, C., G. Robazza, and L. Scherer. 2018. “Participatory Design, Temporary Structures and the Appropriation of Urban Space by Marginalized Youth: The Problem of the Odd Triangle.” Journal of Urban Design 23 (5): 780–797.*

Häkkilä, J., M. Posti, O. Koskenranta, and L. Ventä-Olkkonen. 2013. “Co-creating a Digital 3D City with Children.” In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia – MUM ‘13, 1–2. New York: ACM Press.*

Magnussen, R., and A. Elming. 2015. “Cities at Play: Children’s Redesign of Deprived Neighbourhoods in Minecraft.” In Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Games Based Learning: ECGBL 2015, edited by R. Munkvold, and L. Kolås, 331–337. Reading, UK: Academic Conferences and Publishing International.*

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Scholten, H., S. Fruijtier, E. Dias, S. Hettinga, M. Opmeer, W. S. van Leeuwen, and C. Fruijtier. 2017. “Geocraft as a Means to Support the Development of Smart Cities, Getting the People of the Place Involved - Youth Included.” Quality Innovation Prosperity 21 (1): 119–150.*

Lozanovska, M., and L. Xu. 2013. “Children and University Architecture Students Working Together: A Pedagogical Model of Children’s Participation in Architectural Design.” CoDesign 9 (4): 209–229.*

Menconi, M. E., and D. Grohmann. 2018. “Participatory Retrofitting of School Playgrounds: Collaboration Between Children and University Students to Develop a Vision.” Thinking Skills and Creativity 29 (September): 71–86.*

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Zosh, J. M., K. Hirsh-Pasek, E. J. Hopkins, H. Jensen, C. Liu, D. Neale, S. L. Solis, and D. Whitebread. 2018. “Accessing the Inaccessible: Redefining Play as a Spectrum.” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (August): 1124.

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Sporrel, K., S. R. Caljouw, and R. Withagen. 2017a. “Children Prefer a Nonstandardized to a Standardized Jumping Stone Configuration: Playing Time and Judgments.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 53 (November): 131–137.*

Sporrel, K., S. R. Caljouw, and R. Withagen. 2017b. “Gap-crossing Behavior in a Standardized and a Nonstandardized Jumping Stone Configuration.” PLoS ONE 12 (5): e0176165.*

Bozkurt, M., H. Woolley, and N. Dempsey. 2019. “Children’s Interactions with Water in City Centres: A Case Study from Sheffield, UK.” Landscape Research 44 (6): 671–687.*

Yuill, N., S. Strieth, C. Roake, R. Aspden, and B. Todd. 2007. “Brief Report: Designing a Playground for Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders - Effects on Playful Peer Interactions.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 37 (6): 1192–1196.*

McGlone, N. 2016. “Pop-Up Kids: Exploring Children’s Experience of Temporary Public Space.” Australian Planner 53 (2): 117–126.*

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