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Explore
Explore the world's playgrounds.
Study playgrounds across cultures, eras and places—their histories, design philosophies, materials, relationship with nature and the forms of play they enable.
A Toy University Laboratory
Toy → Play → Environment → Human Possibility
Playground
Where the world learns to play.
Exploring the playgrounds of yesterday. Reimagining the playgrounds of tomorrow.
Playground Exploration Lab · 01
What if a playground was not simply a place to play, but a place to discover what human beings are capable of?
The Playground Exploration Lab studies playgrounds as environments.
We explore how children and adults move, imagine, collaborate, take risks, create stories and experience the world through play.
We look at playgrounds across cultures, generations, materials, landscapes and technologies.
What should the playground of the future look like?
Three Core Areas · 02
Study the world.
Then change it.
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Rethink
Question what a playground can be.
Move beyond prescribed equipment. Ask how an environment might unlock imagination, movement, confidence, risk, sensory discovery, storytelling and social connection.
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Invent
Invent the next generation of playgrounds.
Bring designers, architects, artists, educators, children, researchers, toy makers and innovators together. Prototype them. Test them. Learn from them. Build them.
The World of Playgrounds · 03
Every playground tells us something about the society that created it.
Time
01How playgrounds have evolved.
1870 — 2050
Place
02How geography and culture shape play.
LOCAL — GLOBAL
Design
03How architecture creates possibilities for play.
FORM — FREEDOM
Material
04Wood, stone, metal, earth, water, fabric, light and what comes next.
TACTILE — EMERGING
Movement
05Climb. Jump. Balance. Run. Hide. Swing. Build. Transform.
BODY — SPACE
Imagination
06What happens when a structure does not tell you what it is supposed to be?
OBJECT — WORLD
Open Brief · 04
Invent the next playground.
The playground is waiting for its next idea. Imagine environments that transform how people move, connect, learn and play.
Bring an idea.
Build a prototype.
Test a possibility.
Change the way we play.
From the research community
Researcher perspective
Playground
The perfect playground has been designed many times, and never built
Beata Fuller · Researcher · Australia
Playground Archive · 05
A living record of possibility.
A growing collection of playgrounds, ideas, experiments, structures and stories from around the world.
01EraExplore →
02PlaceExplore →
03MaterialExplore →
04MovementExplore →
05IdeaExplore →
Archive prototype · Collection in development
Collaboration · 06
Build the future of play with us.
Toy University believes that the future of play cannot be designed by one discipline alone. This is an open invitation to a global exploration.
Collaborate with Toy UniversityArchitects01
Landscape designers02
Toy designers03
Artists04
Educators05
Researchers06
Children07
Parents08
Inventors09
Institutions10
Play practitioners11
A toy can create play. A playground can create an entire world for play.