Regensburg’s child friendly inclusive park

I am thrilled to let you know that a project of our city – one that I also was working on – made it onto the shortlist of the international inspire award from cfci unicef and is now up for public voting. The project with most votes will win the award. You can find it under the category “Play, leisure and family time” and vote for it here: Vote | Child Friendly Cities Initiative

So here some infos about our project:

The city of Regensburg has built a child-friendly and inclusive park.

Children and youth, with and without disabilities and from different social and cultural backgrounds where involved in the planning process. In my function as youth welfare planner of the department of municipal youth work I organized three differnet workshops with kids and youngsters. A colleague from the department of urban green and the extrernal architekt (see below) supported me with the child participation. We included elementary school kids, teenagers (some of them were refugees) and kids with mental and physicial disabilies.

The park provides attractive qualities of stay for all generations. It has a positive impact on the climate, and is built in a sustainable way.

Bushes, trees and meadows offer natural play opportunities. There are lawns for ballgames, an educational path about nature and urban gardening space.

At the builders playground children can built their own play structures. My kids absolutely love this builders playground. I posted an article about it a while ago here:

A construction playground – Where kids build their own play structures with real tools – Anna’s StrongKids

Bike and pedestrian routes connect the old surrounding neighborhoods with the newly developed parts in  a child and climate friendly way.

Various islands in the park offer different opportunities for play for all ages form early childhood up to teenage years.

Teenagers with all kinds of social and cultural backgrounds, also refugees, came up with the ideas for the sports park.

Elementary school kids invented the concept of a huge play dragon, which now is the center peace of the park.

And kids with mental and physical disabilities, gave their insight to make the playground inclusive, wheelchair assessable and attractive for all.

Skilled professional planners made sure to implement the kids’ ideas throughout the park.

The result is a wonderful barrier-free and child friendly park with play opportunities that the kids absolutely love.

Please support this great work by voting for our project and by spreading the word.

A great project with such an impact can only be realized when many different players colaborate. The following persons and institutions were involved in this project:

Planning of the park by Angelika Diewald and Michael Lehmann of the Department of Urban Green Regensburg in collaboration with Jan-Niklas Jansen, Landschaftsarchitektenbüro mahl gebhard konzepte Münschen, and with children and youth from the follwoing institutions:

Pestalozzi Mittelschule, Hort Napoleonstein, Bischof-Wittmann-Schule, Verein für körper- und mehrfachbehidnerte Menschen e.V., Inklussion commissioner of the City of Regensburg, Frank Reinel, Dedartment of Municipal Youth Work, Anna Schledorn

Landscaping by: Garten- udn Landschafutsbaufirma ROLPF Schmidt GmbH, Schirmitz,

Play structures by ZimmereiOBst GmbH Spielraumgestaltung Spreenhagen

Builders Playground is run bei Regensburger Eltern e.V. and planned by Petra Hartung, WamslerRohloffWirzmüller FreiRaumArchitekten

Photo and video documentation by the Press Office of the City of Regensburg Stefan Effenhauser and Peter Ferstl

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