Design and development of a children's playground using a modular design strategy

Abstract

The playground is an important feature of a child’s growing years. A well-designed playground is able to provide children opportunities to develop their cognitive, physical, social and communication skills through play in a safe environment. Most playgrounds nowadays are designed using a modular approach to allow flexibility in choice of components. However, another benefit of modular design that could be further explored is the flexibility in assembly. In this report, a modular indoor home playground is designed and developed for children aged 1 – 5 years old. The objective of the playground is to enable a child’s age-appropriate and all-rounded development of skills as he grows up. To allow flexibility in the assembly process, the playground adopts a similar concept to building blocks, so that parents can assemble the modular parts according to their preference. A systematic product design process developed by Pahl and Beitz consisting of four phases – design definition, conceptual design, embodiment design and detailed design – is used to design the playground. During this process, Singapore residents with children within the targeted age group were surveyed to evaluate key design criteria and concepts. Safety specification documents and simulations were also used to ensure the safe design of playground features. It is recommended that further study be done on manufacturing design considerations to improve the design.