ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ASSESSMENT AND CHILDREN’S PLAY BEHAVIOR OBSERVATION IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOOD PARKS

• Main Author: Ramadhan, Roni
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/44465
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Outdoor play is important in facilitating children’s learning process, development as well as physical growth. Elements of built environment stimulates play affordances resulted from the interaction that occurs between children and the elements of play setting. Nonetheless, problem faced by cities in developing nation like Jakarta resulted from economic growth and urbanisation pattern leads to the decreasing amount of play environment for urban children. Children’s play environment become scarce and limited only to institutional spaces such as school which does not provide much freedom (Senda, 1998). The aim of the study is to describe the physical quality of urban neigborhood parks and explore the relationship between physical quality and play affordances that occurs in the play setting of neighborhood parks. The research employs a mixed method approach towards five urban neighborhood parks located in The Sub-Disrict of Ciganjur-Jakarta. The study initiates a qualitative data gathering through a pseudo evaluation process to determine quality using criteria such as (1) Accessibility and Inclusion, (2) Security, (3) Safety, (4) Health, (5) Environmental Comfort, (6) Aesthetic, (7) Maintenence and (8) Diversity of Play Elements; and children’s play behavior observation to determine play affordances and interaction that occurs between children and the elements of play setting. The process follows a sequential implementation by emphasizing mixed techniques such as descriptive analysis, quasi statistical analysis and cross tabulation to determine the relationship between the two data sets. The research findings indicates a strong positive relationship between environment quality and play affordances that occurs in the play setting of neighborhood parks located in The Sub-Disrict of Ciganjur especially towards criteria such as (4) Health, (5) Environmental Comfort, (6) Aesthetic, (7) Maintenence and (8) Diversity of Play Elements. The research was able to identify important criteria which was not taken into account to support the play setting such as (1) Accessibility and Inclusion, (2) Security, and (3) Safety. The study provides valuable information regarding environmental quality for urban neighborhood parks as children’s play setting for administrators, designers, and policy makers.