| Title |
Children`s Outdoor Play in New Towns: A Descriptive Evaluation |
| Abstract |
This study is a descriptive evaluation of children's outdoor play in New Towns. Housing over a million population, these phenomenal plans are characterized as high-rise, institutional, and oversimplified. Given the number of children residing, effects of these steretyped environments are immense. A total of 1410 children from 2 to 15 years old on the site of 39 housing estates selected from three recent new town projects around Seoul were systematically observed using semi-structured observation-route method, between 1 and 7 p.m. on nonrainy days in September and October 1994. Statistical analysis overall indicated limited use of the outdoor areas in terms of age, place, and play. Preschoolers and younger school-aged boys were dominant mostly using wheels and balls or doing games and motor-orinted plays, while older children and cognitive plays were significantly rare. Designated, planned play area and open spaces were not among children's favorite places, except preschoolers' heavy use of playground equipments whereas they preferred hard flat surfaces of streets and parking lots. Data showed children's engaging in activities that correponded to the functional properties of given environment, which began to confirm the functional relationships between place and play and the complementary effects of environmental properties on play and child development. Findings were thus reviewed in terms of such related topics as environmental affordances, environmental diversity, functional complexity, and the effects of loose parts. |