Fostering a more active community - Skills Gardens as community playgrounds
A couple of years ago, I was working on a project with a national sport to review their junior sport pathway program, including game scaling progressions. A ‘side conversation’ was about raising the visibility of the sport. I suggested working with a local government council to build and then trial a themed to the sport playground, drawing on the idea of a Skills Garden, in place of community playground. We got as far as chatting with a playground designer on a design before a change of leadership at the national sport saw the game scaling project terminated. The Skills Garden concept is a development of the Athletic Skills Company and their Athletic Skills Model. The Athletic Skills Model (ASM) is a philosophy and framework for human movement development. A premise of the ASM is that people develop better, healthier, and more resilient movement skills through versatile movement experiences across many activities. A Skills Garden is a specially designed outdoor environ...
