The architecture of play, sensory and cognitive stimulation: From childhood to adolescence

By Berta Brusilovsky

Play is a basic right of children, regardless of their status or diversity, as stated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (UN, 1959) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989). As noted in the foreword to this book, guaranteeing this right to play is a duty, as it is an important component of children’s development, stimulating creativity, fostering socialisation, promoting autonomy and encouraging them to improve themselves and take on challenges.
In Arquitectura del juego, estímulo sensorial y cognitivo desde la infancia hasta la adolescencia (The Architecture of Play, Sensory and Cognitive Stimulation from Childhood to Adolescence), architect Berta Brusilovsky presents — in terms of accessibility, neuroscience and health — her model of cognitive accessibility and recreation in parks, squares, gardens and urban open areas, offering guidance and inspiration to support an inclusive outdoor playground model, especially for those who need sensory and cognitive stimulation.
The aim could not be more important and engaging, to bring together and unite diverse groups in play and recreation: to make these areas attractive and usable for those who want to take part in the activity. Diversity in terms of knowledge, learning and fun would have a real impact on the urban planning, form, layout and size needed to make truly inclusive parks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Incipit
• Release date: Mar 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9788417528782

Berta Brusilovsky

Architect and urban planning technician, she has a Master’s Degree in Universal Accessibility and Design for All. A teacher of urban planning and historic centres, she has participated in a wide variety of national and international conferences. For more than twenty years she has been researching, creating and disseminating the “Design model for accessible spaces, sensory and cognitive spectrum”, with which she works by incorporating specialized teams and people with neurodiversity in the diagnosis and evaluation of environments and buildings. And for which she has received national and international awards, the last in 2023. She has a wide line of publications on urban planning, historical centres and sensory and cognitive accessibility, with a focus on neuroscience and architecture.

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© Berta Brusilovsky, 2023

© Entimema, 2023

Cover image: © Depositphotos

ISBN: 978-84-17528-78-2

Thema: TNKA

Infanta Mercedes, 62 - 3º puerta 8

28020 Madrid

Tel.: [phone]

www.cyan.es

www.incipiteditores.com

The architecture of play, sensory and cognitive stimulation from childhood to adolescence. Cognitive accessibility and recreation in urban areas

The reproduction of all or part of this work by any known or unknown means or process, including reprography and computer processing, and the distribution of copies by rental or public lending, is strictly prohibited without the written authorisation of the copyright holders, and is subject to the penalties established by law.

INDEX

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

CONTRIBUTIONS

1. RATIONALE

1.1. THE RIGHT TO PLAY

1.2. BACKGROUND

1.2.1. The approach

1.3. PLAY AND DIVERSITY

1.3.1. Spatial disorientation

1.3.2. Intellectual or developmental disabilities

1.3.3. Autistic spectrum disorder

1.3.4. Cerebral palsy

1.3.5. Obstetric brachial palsy and hemiplegia

1.3.6. Achondroplasia

1.3.7. Epilepsy

1.3.8. Non-verbal learning disorder (NVLD)

1.3.9. People seeking diagnosis

1.3.10. Behaviour and play

1.4. THE HUMAN NERVOUS SYSTEM

1.4.1. Sensory input, perception and cognition processes

1.4.2. Emotional and visceral brain

1.4.3. Mesolimbic pathway: uncertainty and reward

1.4.4. Exertion and motor systems

1.4.5. Attention and memory systems

1.5. DECISION MAKING

2. STIMULI

2.1. STRATEGIES

2.2. THEORY OF PLAY

2.3. METHODOLOGIES FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF INCLUSIVE PLAY

2.3.1. The model for designing accessible spaces, cognitive spectrum

2.3.2. Inclusive playgrounds

2.3.3. Doman Method

3. DEVELOPMENT OF STIMULUS CATEGORIES

3.1. VISUOSPATIAL COORDINATION AND MOTOR ACTION

3.1.1. Visuospatial coordination

3.1.2. Praxis and motor activity

3.1.3. Exploration: an integrating experience

3.1.4. Special features in spatiality

3.2. SENSORY

3.3. PERCEPTION

3.4. COGNITION

3.4.1. Processing speed

3.4.2. Attention and memory

3.4.3. Organisation of parts into a whole

3.4.4. Abstraction

3.4.5. Symbolisation

3.4.6. Imagination

3.4.7. Imitation

3.4.8. Concept of time

3.4.9. Language

3.4.10. Complex games for combined stimuli

3.4.11. Feelings and expressions

3.5. SENSORY DISCONNECTION

3.6. SOCIAL GUIDELINES

3.7. SUPERVISION

3.7.1. Protections

4. SHAPES AND COLOURS

4.1. SHAPES

4.2. COLOURS

4.3. ILLUSION OF MOVEMENT OF A STATIC STRUCTURE

4.4. ORDER WITH NUMBERING

5. GENERAL ORGANISATION

5.1. INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS

5.2. ZONING

5.2.1. Access and environmental safety

5.2.2. Internal structure

5.2.3. Description of elements

6. COMPOSITION, DESIGN AND MATERIALS

6.1. SPECIFIC DESIGN CONDITIONS

6.1.1. Sensory safety

6.1.2. Recovery areas

6.1.3. Entrapment safety

6.1.4. Floor treatment

6.1.5. Solar and environmental protection

6.2. GENERAL CONDITIONS

6.2.1. UNE standards. Playgrounds

7. GENERAL ZONING AND DISTRIBUTION OF STIMULI

7.1. SENSORY AND COGNITIVE STRUCTURES, MOTOR COORDINATION

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FOREWORD

Play is a basic right of children, regardless of their status or diversity, as stated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (UN, 1959) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989). It is a duty to ensure this right to play, as it is an important component of children’s development, stimulating creativity, fostering socialisation, promoting autonomy and encouraging them to improve themselves and take on challenges.

Most of us have fond memories of this time of our lives, yet children with a wide diversity of disabilities often - too often - feel that playgrounds are places where they are left aside while watching the fun of others around them as mere spectators.

Playgrounds have developed considerably over the years, but they often still lack one essential feature: inclusivity. The government should undertake to remove this barrier by passing laws and regulations with specific provisions for public playgrounds and parks.

Until now, children’s play areas and playground equipment have been a major neglected area in terms of regulations. Most of the existing applicable legislation speaks in very general terms: for example, they must comply with universal accessibility criteria, they must be adapted, etc. This oversight is accentuated in the case of intellectual or developmental disabilities and others with specific sensory and motor characteristics that have not even been assessed in order to be integrated into recreational areas.

At present, there is no mandatory technical standard in Spain specifying how these play elements should be manufactured. This lack of regulations means that professionals in the children’s playground sector (whether game manufacturers, playground designers, municipal technicians, etc.) are faced with many doubts and the end result is the creation of playgrounds that fail to reach the necessary standards and, in the end, are hardly used because they prove to be boring for ALL users.

However, in this scenario there is also some good news: awareness of the need for and importance of inclusive playgrounds is now a reality in our society. A wealth of literature in the form of guidelines and recommendations is raising awareness of this sector, making it much easier to move in the right direction.

Architect Berta Brusilovsky presents her model of cognitive accessibility and recreation in parks, public squares, gardens and open urban areas, based on accessibility, neuroscience and health. With her unique way of explaining, she first introduces us to concepts of neuroscience in order to better understand and then design these elements of play. Researching and making proposals based on stimuli has enabled her to enter into complex contexts of motor, sensory and perceptual issues and the extent of the components involved in cognition: executive functions, memories, attention and processing speed have been aimed directly at devising solutions and spatial structures, while also incorporating support areas to include rest and relaxation as an essential part of play. And in this way, they can be used by all groups of children and pre-adolescents, who want to have fun just as all of us who have spent time in these spaces, whose equipment, although highly attractive, is not inclusive and therefore often seems to exclude many people, without the designers having anticipated this, let alone wished for it.

The intention of this publication is to offer guidance and inspiration to support a model of an inclusive outdoor playground, especially for all those people who need sensory and cognitive stimulation. The aim could not be more important and challenging: to bring together and unite diverse groups in play and recreation by increasing the appeal of these areas and thus encourage their use by those who want to take part in this activity. Diversity for knowledge, learning and fun would have a real impact on the urban planning, form, layout and dimensions required to make truly inclusive parks, and this would be reflected in a much greater and better use of outdoor areas and public recreational facilities.

Eloy Bossom Diumenjó

www.parquesinfantilesinclusivos.es

INTRODUCTION

The idea behind the text is not to offer solutions, but rather to provide ideas and guidelines for game design experts to develop. The aim of these methodological, conceptual and visual guidelines is to encourage specialists to focus on structures that, due to their simplicity, can be completed by users - stirring the imagination of those who wish to investigate - and that are sufficiently attractive to arouse their interest, attract their attention and stimulate their memory: i.e. simplicity as a strategy, as opposed to the complexity that prevails in many areas of play, with stimuli that, more often than not, are quite unnecessary.

Collaborations with specialists, researchers and users provide a wide range of criteria with which to approach issues that are not always easy to tackle, and which, through enquiry and study, provide a focus for the objectives of the search. In this case, we are talking about play aimed at sensory, perceptual and cognitive factors, and which, together with motor skills, focuses on functions which in childhood and adolescence are decisive in the physical and mental health of the groups