Text and photos by Todd Saunders, architect, Norway

A Strong Need for Design in the Schoolyard

Over the past four years the Canadian architect and environ-mental planner, Todd Saunders, has been living in Bergen, Norway. He has worked on environmental design projects in Austria, Germany and Russia, as well as his native Canada.

Todd Saunders recently gave a lecture for the European Institute for Design and Disability (EIDD), from which this extract is taken:

I work in a team that includes artists, gardeners, physiotherapists, educators and parents to make a design that takes the needs of all users into consideration.

These schoolyard designs strive to find an overall concept that integrates many elements into an inspiring environment for all the school children, elements that are based on creating outdoor environments to stimulate the children’s senses and act as an arena for learning.

Elements from the schoolyards that I have designed include school gardens, chicken houses, fruit tree gardens, water features, outdoor musical equipment, sculptured terrain and non-traditional play equipment, which I designed together with an artist. When these elements are combined, they make the schoolyards come to life for the children.

Through the experience of designing these schoolyards, I have developed a process that involves the children, the parents and the teachers at the school.


A general picture of the schoolyard after a fourweek building project with students and their parents. The picture show the music wall, the chicken garden in the background and some of the ways used to create a new schoolyard from a flat site.

Drawings and Models

The process begins with a design day, when I come to the school and make drawings and models with the students. From these ideas, I draw up a plan. Over a period of four to six months, I work together with the parents to raise money and purchase materials.

When all this is in place, we organise a two or three week working session, involving an artist and myself, working together with small groups of children during the day and with 15-20 parents each evening to build their schoolyard. This process has been surprisingly successful: parents only need to contribute from three to six hours of their free time, while the children acquire a sense of responsibility for their schoolyard, and the cost is usually half that of a conventional one.

Some of these projects have involved children with various disabilities. But when we started looking for concrete examples to help us, we found very few that were inspiring. Manufacturers of play equipment for children with disabilities appeared not to understand their needs, or even take them seriously. We had to begin from scratch and come up with our own unprecedented ideas: new solutions for old problems.

Involve and Show

There is a strong need for schoolyards to be designed so that they can be used by all children. I have three recommendations for how designers and government agencies could achieve this goal:

1) Involve children with disabilities in the design process. Go around the schoolyards with them, hear their stories, and then make drawings and models with them. Experience the world as they do, then design with this in mind.

2) We need more examples that show the way we should build schoolyards. Governments that make pilot projects can instigate and stimulate innovative projects. These projects can be observed and everyone can learn from the experience.

3) Organise competitions for school-yard design for all. This would give architects, inventors, students, artists, educators and others a chance to present their ideas. The best of the ideas should be financed and then tested in reality.

Published in Crisp & Clear No. 2, July 2000