CEN/TR 16467:2013
(Main)Playground equipment accessible for all children
Playground equipment accessible for all children
This Technical Report covers open access, unsupervised play spaces. It does not cover adventure playgrounds or other play spaces which are used under supervision. The intention of this document is to enable users, to a large extent, to access play spaces and use the equipment independent of the help of others.
This Technical Report is intended to be used in conjunction with EN 1176 and provides guidance to those involved in the specification, provision and management of play environments. It is intended to help create spaces that will promote opportunities for children of differing abilities to have the opportunity to participate in unsupervised play, and with appropriate levels of challenge and risk.
The scope of EN 1176 (all parts) covers only the safety requirements for play equipment and play surfaces. When developing this Technical Report, however, it was realised that the scope for "play for all" needed to consider a wider context, covering not just the immediate play space but also provide information about the broader environment and other access and facility issues.
Barrierefreie Kinderspielplatzgeräte
Équipements d'aires de jeux accessibles à tous les enfants
Le présent Rapport technique couvre les espaces de jeux non surveillés, en libre accès. Il ne traite pas des terrains d’aventures ou autres espaces de jeux utilisés sous surveillance. Ce document a pour objectif de permettre aux utilisateurs, dans une large mesure, d’accéder aux espaces de jeux et d’utiliser les équipements sans l’aide des autres.
Le présent Rapport technique est destiné à être utilisé conjointement avec l’EN 1176 et donne des lignes directrices aux personnes chargées de la spécification, la fourniture et la gestion des environnements de jeux. Il vise à aider à créer des espaces qui augmenteront les opportunités offertes aux enfants ayant différentes aptitudes à participer à des jeux non surveillés, avec des niveaux de difficulté et un risque appropriés.
Le domaine d’application de l’EN 1176 (toutes les parties) ne couvre que les exigences de sécurité relatives aux équipements et aux surfaces de jeu. Lors de l’élaboration du présent Rapport technique, il a toutefois été admis que le domaine d’application du « jeu pour tous » devait être pris dans un contexte plus étendu, ne couvrant pas simplement l’espace de jeu immédiat mais fournissant également des informations sur l’environnement plus large et d’autres problèmes d’accès et d’installation.
Oprema otroških igrišč, dostopna vsem otrokom
To tehnično poročilo zajema nenadzorovana igrišča s prostim dostopom. Ne zajema pustolovskih igrišč ali drugih igrišč, ki se uporabljajo pod nadzorom. Namen tega dokumenta je uporabnikom v širokem obsegu omogočiti dostop do igrišč in samostojno uporabo opreme brez pomoči drugih. To tehnično poročilo je namenjeno za uporabo skupaj s standardom EN 1176 ter zagotavlja smernice za ljudi, ki sodelujejo pri pripravi specifikacij, zagotavljanju storitev in upravljanju igrišč. Njegov namen je prispevati k ustvarjanju prostorov, ki bodo spodbujali priložnosti, da se otroci z različnimi sposobnostmi vključijo v nenadzorovano igro z ustreznimi ravnmi izzivov in tveganj. Področje uporabe standarda EN 1176 (vsi deli) zajema le varnostne zahteve za igralno opremo in igralne površine. Vendar se je pri razvijanju tega tehničnega poročila pokazalo, da je treba na področje uporabe pojma »igra za vse« vključiti širši kontekst, ki ne bi zajemal le neposrednega igralnega prostora, ampak bi tudi zagotovil informacije o širšem okolju ter drugih vprašanjih v zvezi z dostopom in prostorom.
General Information
Standards Content (Sample)
SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-maj-2013
2SUHPDRWURãNLKLJULãþGRVWRSQDYVHPRWURNRP
Playground equipment accessible for all children
Barrierefreie Kinderspielplatzgeräte
Jeux pour tous
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/TR 16467:2013
ICS:
97.200.40 ,JULãþD Playgrounds
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.
TECHNICAL REPORT
CEN/TR 16467
RAPPORT TECHNIQUE
TECHNISCHER BERICHT
March 2013
ICS 97.200.40
English Version
Playground equipment accessible for all children
Équipements d'aires de jeux accessibles à tous les enfants Barrierefreie Kinderspielplatzgeräte
This Technical Report was approved by CEN on 3 December 2012. It has been drawn up by the Technical Committee CEN/TC 136.
CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United
Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION
EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG
Management Centre: Avenue Marnix 17, B-1000 Brussels
© 2013 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. CEN/TR 16467:2013: E
worldwide for CEN national Members.
Contents Page
Foreword .3
0 Introduction .4
1 Scope .7
2 Terms and definitions .7
3 Prevalence and categorising of disability .8
4 Challenge and risk .8
5 Aims of Play for All .9
6 Play area design / layout . 10
7 Equipment and types of play . 12
Annex A (informative) Prevalence and categorising of disability, additional information . 17
Bibliography . 19
Foreword
This document (CEN/TR 16467:2013) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 136 “Sports,
playground and other recreational facilities and equipment”, the secretariat of which is held by DIN.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. CEN [and/or CENELEC] shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
0 Introduction
0.1 General
CEN/TC 136/SC 1 decided in September 2007 to develop a document to support the following statement
taken from the introduction of EN 1176-1.
It is also recognised that there is an increasing need for play provision to be accessible to users with
disabilities.
Germany made the proposal for a European document, as they had developed a national standard
DIN 33942.
This CEN Technical Report is intended to provide guidance only.
0.2 The rights of all children
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights) declares: "States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural
and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic,
recreational and leisure activity". Article 31 recognises the rights of the child to engage in play, and Article 2
states that there should be no discrimination of children irrespective of disability.
Since the introduction of EN 1176 it has been recognised that further guidance should be given on how to
provide play spaces that are more accessible for children with disabilities, and encourage children of all
abilities to play together. This guidance document aims to do that.
This guidance document will not mean that every play facility will be suitable for every child; the play provider
may have many constraints such as a restricted budget or space limitations. However, it is hoped that, by
adopting the information provided, all play spaces in some way can become more inclusive.
The document focuses on unsupervised play provision whilst recognising that carers bringing users to the
facility will need to make judgements on the appropriateness of the items.
It also recognises that the person bringing the user to the facility may/could have impairments and without the
ability to access the playground the non-disabled child may/could be denied the play opportunities provided.
There is a moral and legal duty upon us all to ensure that, whatever their ability, each child has a chance to
reach their full potential. This will not come from focusing on the lowest common denominator of ability, but by
offering each and every child a level of challenge that they can learn to manage and thus develop their skills
and move on to further challenges.
It is recognised that there will always be conflict between the needs of children with different abilities and
therefore we need to try to manage this conflict. The priority needs to be inclusion, and the encouragement of
all children to come together through play in good quality play environments.
The alternative is exclusion – not only is this incorrect and undesirable but, as stated in "Able to Play" (Kellog
Foundation, USA): "This exclusion affects children with disabilities, their siblings, and their families. Further, it
affects all other children as they assign status to one another during play – those who contribute during play
are expected to be contributors throughout life. This perception is established during childhood and is very
difficult to alter as a youth or adult. The consequences of some children being excluded from public
playgrounds has the effect of excluding them from the work of children, which sets the stage for how we
interact as adults in society."
0.3 Play for all
The term "Play for All" is used to emphasise that this document is not about how to create play spaces and
play equipment just for disabled children, it is intended to give guidance on how to make play spaces and play
equipment accessible to children of all abilities. It asserts moreover that all children are different, and a good
play space is one that will offer play opportunities and challenges for both disabled and non-disabled children.
Play for all is play for all children and not just play for specific groups of children with or without specific
disabilities. Disabled children also need to be able to play in unsupervised but safe settings alongside their
siblings and friends. To achieve this, disabled children need to be fully integrated into society and it is
particularly important to create opportunities for this integration within unstructured and unsupervised play
environments. Disabled children should be welcomed and encouraged to use play facilities jointly with other
children. As such it is important that play areas are not "dumbed down" and that challenging opportunities for
very able children are still provided. The need to provide challenging environments for disabled children is just
as important if not more so, as quite often the rest of their lives is spent in very closeted environments.
This Technical Report is not intended to be design restrictive and aims to follow the Design For All principles.
"Design for All is design for human diversity, social inclusion and equality. This holistic and innovative
approach constitutes a creative and ethical challenge for all planners, designers, entrepreneurs,
administrators and political leaders.
Design for All aims to enable all people to have equal opportunities to participate in every aspect of
society. To achieve this, the built environment, everyday objects, services, culture and information – in
short, everything that is designed and made by people to be used by people – needs to be accessible,
convenient for everyone in society to use and responsive to evolving human diversity.
The practice of Design for All makes conscious use of the analysis of human needs and aspirations and
requires the involvement of end users at every stage in the design process" (source: EIDD Stockholm
Declaration©, 2004).
This document is not about universal access to all play equipment but more about creating places where
children of all abilities can play together. If we look to "Developing Accessible Play Space – A good practice
guide" (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, UK Government) we will read: "All children do not need to access
play spaces in the same way but they are all fundamentally entitled to go out to play. Good design of public
play spaces is needed in order to make this possible. Each child is different – not every piece of equipment in
a play space needs to be accessible to every child but access to the social experience of play is key".
This Technical Report does not focus on "impairment specific" issues but hopes to help identify obstacles to
play for any child who might wish to access the play space and think about ways to circumvent them. It is also
intended to highlight any conflicts between the accessibility issue and the actual requirements of EN 1176.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that disabled children have the right to be included in
their local community and to do the kinds of things that non-disabled children do. Developing accessible play
space is about enabling all children to be with and learn from each other. Moreover, enabling disabled children
to access play spaces helps them and their families build relationships and neighbourhood networks that can
bind communities and promote social inclusion. This is vital as disabled children do not want to be on their
own playing by themselves on equipment labelled "disabled equipment"; they want to be out there with their
non-disabled peers and brothers and sisters. As one non-disabled boy said “I want to be able to play with my
brother. It makes me feel sad when I can play on things, say climbing up and he can’t. I like it when he can
climb as well, maybe not so high but we are on the same things in the same playground and we can play
together.” Steven, 12-year-old brother of Martin (see [1]).
0.4 Cost
Finance for providing accessible play can be an issue, often used as an excuse for not providing better play
for all. Any increase in cost as a result of providing more inclusive play areas will be significantly reduced if the
needs of all children are recognised from the initial design stage.
The sections in the document cover:
— The prevalence and categorising of disability – This section covers the complexity of impairments and the
importance of not focusing on specific groups such as wheelchair users, when developing open access
play spaces. Additional information on this subject can be found in Annex A.
— Challenge and Risk – Providing information on the importance of challenge for all children. Having
impairment should not prevent children from reaching their full potential through risk taking, and the
importance of incorporating this into play spaces.
— The aims of play for all – Overall aims and considerations for good inclusive play spaces.
— Play area design and layout – Guidance on making play spaces more accessible for all.
— Equipment and types of play – Covering equipment choice and general information about encouraging
multi use and integration.
Many documents were referenced in the production of this guidance document. These could provide useful
additional information for play providers, so they are listed in the bibliography.
Tolerable risk is determined by the search for an optimal balance between the ideal of absolute safety and the
demands to be met by a product, process or service, and factors such as benefit to the user, suitability for
purpose, cost effectiveness, and conventions of the society concerned. It follows that there is a need to review
continually the tolerable level, in particular when developments, both in technology and in knowledge, can
lead to economically feasible improvements to attain the minimum risk compatible with the use of a product,
process or service.
1 Scope
This Technical Report covers open access, unsupervised play spaces. It does not cover adventure
playgrounds or other play spaces which are used under supervision. The intention of this document is to
enable users, to a large extent, to access play spaces and use the equipment independent of the help of
others.
This Technical Report is intended to be used in conjunction with EN 1176 and provides guidance to those
involved in the specification, provision and management of play environments. It is intended to help create
spaces that will promote opportunities for children of differing abilities to have the opportunity to participate in
unsupervised play, and with appropriate levels of challenge and risk.
The scope of EN 1176
...
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