The Relationship Between Change of Children's Nature Experiences and the Characteristics of Their Residential Areas

A Study on Changes to the Form of Children’s Playgrounds in Japan by Analyzing the JILA Selected Works of Landscape Architecture

“…Therefore, it is appropriate to encourage talented designers to discover some interesting ways to make children themselves create, rather than to monotonously add a mass of elements to their designs. As for the increased awareness of the importance of natural elements in design, several previous studies [4][5][6]29] mentioned in the introduction revealed that researchers have already paid attention to the addition of natural elements to improve variety. Even the practitioners-designers-agree, according to the results of Pattern 4 and Pattern 5, that the importance of nature-related play experiences has increased and may been increasing as before in the future.…”

“…The current play of children faces the problem of becoming monotonous and of play environments becoming scarce in artificially compact cities. A study by Kyung-Rock Ye (1995) [6] clearly indicates that in earlier days (30 years ago), children engaged in a great variety of play in rural and natural spaces, while current-day children are engaging in monotonous and determined play, which is not influenced by the characteristics of residential areas at established spaces in both urban and rural settings.…”

“…Many studies [4][5][6]12,13,18] focus on nature observation of play, which mainly relates to the ages of children. The obtained detailed results are as follows: as children grow up, their senses and elements of recognition of wildlife through nature trails or natural contact change: younger children are particularly sensitive to sight or sound, while older children are not [28].…”

“…Referring to previous research with regard to the aspect of the relationship between the play and the space characteristics of playgrounds in Japan [4,13,17,38,39], the importance of the natural elements in children's playgrounds [5,6,23,29,40,41], and the extraordinary play conditions [20,21,42] in Japan, including the child-oriented categories of the play and, separately, playing space, were presented through the eyes of the children and included playmates, play objects, play equipment; roads, parks, schools, homes nearby, and so on. However, there were few papers classified by designers' position combined with the play styles and space characteristics as the design elements.…”

“Wisdom of the Elders” or “Loss of Experience” as a Mechanism to Explain the Decline in Traditional Ecological Knowledge: A Case Study on Awaji Island, Japan

“…In order for children to play in nature in their daily lives, they need to have not only an abundance of nature close to their locations but also easy access to it psychologically (Kinoshita 1992). Given the lack of correlation between regional characteristics (urban or rural) and children's experiences of nature (Ye 1994), it is likely that a new mechanism or system is needed to reconnect children with nature, even in rural areas where nature is still abundant.…”