Date/Time: November 5, 2026 | 10:30 – 11:00 am

Room: Experience Center

Abstract: Designing for play offers opportunities to think outside the box - creating open-ended environments that support creativity and encourage exploration. This presentation will explore how play environments can support children’s healthy development. Marrying theory to practice, we highlight evidence-based concepts that designers can apply to both interior and exterior applications.

We review the benefits of nature play, risky play, and loose parts play, and illustrate how the theory of affordances can help us design for various developmental ages. We present projects that successfully integrate change, chance, and challenge as design opportunities that invite students to discover elements and opportunities that support self-initiated learning.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the developmental benefits of Risky Play and Nature Play.
2. Define graduated challenge and describe how an affordance-based approach can help designers offer diverse play opportunities in one space.
3. Explain how designing for chance and change allows for opportunities to change spatial scale, integrate color, texture, and light, and offer children a rich and multi-sensory experience.
4. Describe the theory of loose parts and identify materials that can support loose parts play.