ULI Building Healthy Places Toolkit

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8 Build play spaces for children

  • Strategies
  • Insights
Photo: Community Design Resource Center, University of Houston

Evidence Based Strategies

  • Preserve or create natural terrain to support play. For example, plant trees, grasses, and other greenery; make a hill to climb or cycle around; and add boulders, tree stumps, or sand.
  • Incorporate simple interventions such as colorful ground markings to inspire more active play among children.
  • Think beyond classic swings and slides; install playground equipment that includes movable parts, imaginative playscapes, and opportunities for children of all abilities.

Best Practice Strategies

  • Respond to the local climate by providing shelters that offer shade and wind protection.
  • Install drinking fountains to encourage water consumption and support longer play.
  • Provide water features, such as splash pads with fountains, nozzles, and spray pipes on no-slip surfaces, to help children and families stay cool while being active even on the hottest days of summer.

Jeremy Sharpe

Vice President, Community Development, Sharpe & Associates
Tucson, Arizona
 
  • At Rancho Sahuarita, we aspire to enhance our residents’ lives by creating engagement, participation, and education around health. We believe that by bringing these opportunities to the community, we can impact resident choices and ultimately create a healthier place for people to live. The key to our success lies in intentionality. Our soft programming and hard asset mix work together to bring residents out of their homes and into the community.
  • As developers, we have the unique opportunity and the immense responsibility to create places that impact peoples’ lives and the overall community in a positive way.

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Building Healthy Places

The ULI Building Healthy Places Initiative is leveraging the power of ULI’s global networks to shape projects and places in ways that improve the health of people and communities.

Acknowledgements

The Center for Active Design served as contributing author and expert content advisor for this project.
The project was supported by the Colorado Health Foundation, the estate of Melvin Simon, and the ULI Foundation.

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