Inclusive Playgrounds, Universal Design: Maryland’s Playgrounds For All Project and the Design Philosophy For Everyone

By Jacob Witt

A roller-slide provides tactile and vestibular stimulation, doesn’t produce static electricity, and, because of that, is safer for use with a cochlear implant than a traditional slide. A ground-level tic-tac-toe activity panel is placed that way so that a child who uses a wheelchair – or simply isn’t that tall – can use it freely. A ramp can be used by everyone, whilst stairs can only be used by some, and the same applies to poured-in-place rubber. These are all matters that can come into consideration after a person has had an opportunity to read through the state of Maryland’s Playgrounds for All toolkit, one designed to aid in the establishment or identification of inclusive playgrounds: ones which are accessible to and meet the needs of all of its users, welcome all users and their engagement with it, and promote emotional well-being. Achieving all of those goals is, in no small part, through adherence to the seven principles of the philosophy of Universal Design. 

Maryland’s Playgrounds for All Project – a collaboration between the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council and the Maryland Department of Disabilities (MDOD) – was initiated in January of 2022 in response to concerns from Marylanders about the lack of inclusive playgrounds in their communities, a concern warranting consideration for myriad reasons, including that disabled people are statistically likelier to experience heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer, often exercise less than their non-disabled peers, and have higher rates of mental distress than their non-disabled peers. The Playgrounds For All project does not manage funds for playgrounds. Instead, it aims to educate community members and state and local agencies as they plan and budget for new playgrounds. 

The Playgrounds for All project has conducted research to develop a comprehensive framework of what inclusive playgrounds are, connected with communities across Maryland to learn about play spaces in their regions that welcome everyone, and, most recently, produced a website that presents that research. Additionally, they have produced a comprehensive online toolkit with resources and information to support Marylanders seeking the creation of an inclusive playground, or the improvement of an existing playground, in their community, and an interactive map of the existing inclusive playgrounds in Maryland, which currently number 27. 

The Playgrounds for All Project’s toolkit includes a page on Universal Design, a design philosophy named by architect Ron Mace that centers on “accessibility for all ages and abilities” and prioritizes designs that anyone, regardless of physical ability, can engage with. “We did a lot of research just to see if there was anything like this out there already and one term that kept popping up during that early research was universal design…we felt like it really fit well with the theme of inclusion and really going beyond accessibility that we were focusing on,” said Chris Rogers, Director of Engagement with the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council and project lead at the Playgrounds for All Project. “And we wanted this to be, just at first, a collection of resources and information for community members, parks, agencies, whoever, to really have more information all in one place about inclusion and in making sure everyone feels welcome at a playground or a park, and so we featured Universal Design prominently on the toolkit so that it's top of mind for people building playgrounds, people looking at designing one in their community.”

Universal Design’s seven principles, which guide it as a design philosophy, are, as outlined by the RL Mace Universal Design Institute:

• Equitable Use

• Flexibility in Use

• Simplicity and Intuitiveness in Use

• Perceptibility of the Necessary Information for Use

• Tolerance for Error in Use

• Low Physical Effort in Use

and

• Size and Space for Approach and Use

  
  

Universal Design has myriad examples in day-to-day life, with Richard Duncan, Executive Director of the RL Mace Universal Design Institute, pointing to graded entries to homes, no-curb and no-threshold showers, and hand-free faucets as examples. Victoria Lanteigne, Co-Director of The Alliance for Inclusive Design Practice and Research, also mentioned automatic doors and airport navigation cues as others. 

While frequently associated with architecture and product design, Universal Design’s ethos can just as easily be applied to workplaces and educational curriculum planning - Duncan discussing modifiable light, acoustic, and temperature controls at individualized workstations, as well as better air quality control, as “...interesting things to better accommodate people’s individual needs” with regard to Universal Design in the workplace. Discussing the incorporation of Universal Design principles into educational curricula, Duncan described it as paralleling the path of the built environment: programming methodologies prepared for the benefit of specifically disabled students, later proving to benefit students of all ages and differing learning styles. 

“It wasn't just kids with a particular kind of disability label who might benefit from some different kinds of pedagogical approaches, they realized that everybody has different learning styles and learning differences,” Duncan said. “And, oh my gosh, a lot of the learning that were taking place in the special needs area could be applied usefully to academic environments for the kids of all ages, including college and people who learn better from attending a lecture face-to-face, or learn better from taking notes by hand, or learn better from taking notes this way, learn better listening to the lecture afterwards, or looking at a transcript of the lecture.” 

This phenomenon of features being introduced into spaces and services for greater accessibility, ultimately being used and appreciated by those beyond whom the feature was initially designed to serve, was discussed by both Duncan and Lanteigne and is known as the Curb-Cut Effect. The Curb-Cut Effect is a phenomenon deeply-tied to Universal Design, Duncan pointing to dual-height water fountains and reception desks as another example of services initially designed for accessibility – in the case of dual-height fountains and desks, those being provided for the benefit of wheelchair users – which ultimately accommodate a broader range of users, such as shorter people. “Those examples are abound as things that began as, notionally, features that were benefiting this small static group of ‘Them,’ who wind up benefiting just, you know, huge masses of folks. It's a little bit about ease of use and convenience,” Duncan said. “We can all appreciate, or in many cases, just overlook, ease of use and convenience features in our environment all the time. Not many of us dwell on it if we're temporarily able-bodied, right? But at certain points during our lives, we can take real advantage of these things, and that's when we kind of sit up and take notice of them.”

Lanteigne was just as enthusiastic about the curb-cut effect, discussing it as a frequently used example of Universal Design. “I think that universal design is the curb cut. I think the curb cut is universal design, right, and it's one that is often used as an example,” Lanteigne said. “From the early, early marketing assets from the Center for Universal Design, they have features of the curb-cut because it is something that we, especially if you live in an urban area, are using from a pedestrian standpoint, we might be using it to get to transportation, to get to a vehicle, to get to school, to get to all of the places that we're going. And so I think it's just something that is a very prime example of a design strategy that we encounter every day.”

Featured both on the Playgrounds for All Project’s website and in the nomenclature of the Alliance for Inclusive Design Practice and Research is the distinction between Accessibility and Inclusivity. On the former, the distinction is that an accessible playground meets the minimum of expectations for compliance with accessibility standards – Rogers noting the example that, by the standards of the ADA, a playground with mulch surfacing is technically considered accessible to people who use mobility aids, so long as it is wetted and stamped with a realistically unfeasible frequency – whereas an inclusive playground invites and provides opportunities for meaningful engagement for all parties. 

This distinction was also clarified by Victoria Lanteigne, who discussed the Alliance’s name change from its initial nomenclature: The Center for Universal Design.  “Universal design is really very much tied to the Center for Universal Design. It was originated by Ron Mace and his consortium of peers around the universal cross-cutting design solutions that work for people of all abilities, ages, backgrounds, etc. So this is very much a universal solution for the largest range of individuals possible,” Lanteigne said. “We take the kind of lens that inclusive design can include elements of that universal approach, but also look at very specific design strategies for populations that might be in greater need, or design solutions that might not benefit everybody, but are very necessary from an equity perspective. And so that's really how we come together, with a universal and an inclusive approach.” 

While, due to the largely educational focus of the Playgrounds for All project, Rogers and Kirsten Bosak, the Director of Behavioral Health and Behavioral Health Policy with the MDOD, who is another project lead, did not have hard data on the reception of their project’s services, they nonetheless reported that they had grounds to assume it had been well received. “What we've heard is that people are really happy to have this information all in one place, and especially happy to have the interactive map to see where inclusive playgrounds are in their county or municipality,” Bosak said. “That is the nice part about this project, if there isn't one in their town community, they can use this as a tool to go to their county or city council and say, ‘Hey, why is there not? Why aren't we represented on this map? What can we do?’ So I think it has been really well received.”

Having produced a resource that notifies people in their state about where inclusive playgrounds are located and how they can get involved in identifying or creating more, Bosak and Rogers both expressed hope that the Playground for All project can be a valuable resource for Marylanders. “We hope communities can use it to advocate within their own spaces for the need for more inclusive playgrounds in their communities,” Bosak said. “We hope that communities see us as a partner in this project.  This is not a mandate to make inclusive playgrounds, but we just really hope communities see the importance of it, the need for it, and can bring it into light in their own communities."  

“I think there's still a lot of work to be done on this front, but at the same time, I think we're really impressed with a lot of the playgrounds that we've seen across Maryland, including many that were designed and opened before we started on this project,” Rogers added. “And so it is really nice to see how so many communities have been thinking about meaningful inclusion for everyone in their community. And so obviously, we want even more inclusive playgrounds. We want people to feel welcome wherever they go to play. But, I think Maryland is lucky to have 27 playgrounds already on this map as we look to grow that even more.”