Tweens and Teens Love Playgrounds — Designing Outdoor Spaces That Actually Work
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In this episode, John talks to Millie Manton from KOMPAN UK about why tweens and teens are the forgotten age group when it comes to playground and outdoor space design — and what councils can do about it.
Millie draws on research from KOMPAN's Play Institute to explain how young people aged 8–16 play differently, what motivates them to be active (ball games, climbing, areas away from the main playground, and active participation), and why only 23% of 11–17 year olds currently meet the WHO's minimum activity guidelines. She covers designing for teenage girls through the Make Space for Girls initiative, the role of creative seating, social swings, trim trails, and hangout spaces, and why teens want non-prescriptive, open-ended play rather than structured equipment.
Plus: shark cage diving in South Africa, hot pod yoga on the road, and what Millie would tell her 18-year-old self about pasta and Nesquik at uni.
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Questions answered in this episode
Drawn from our conversation with Millie Manton, Area Sales Manager at KOMPAN UK. The answers below are editorial summaries of the discussion — not verbatim transcripts.
Why do councils get outdoor spaces for tweens and teens wrong?
The simplest answer is that they get forgotten about. When a local authority or parish council looks at an open space and starts thinking about a playground, the default mental model usually stops at age 11 or 12. Everything beyond that age — the kids who still want to be outside, who still want to be active, who still want a reason to leave the screens behind — falls into a gap nobody specifically designs for. The fix isn't a single new piece of equipment; it's noticing that this group exists and is part of who the space is meant to serve.
How do tweens and teens play differently from younger children?
The biology is doing something. From around age 8, the onset of puberty shifts how this group moves: they're growing faster, sleeping more, and their sense of balance changes as their bodies change. Play stops being purely about running around and starts being about social context — who's watching, who's hanging out, who's performing for whom. They still want to be active, but the equipment that worked at age six (the slide, the small climbing frame, the bouncy spring animal) suddenly looks childish. Spaces designed without this in mind get abandoned by the age group very quickly.
How much physical activity should young people actually be doing — and how many are hitting that?
The World Health Organization recommends around 60 minutes of moderate activity per day for this age group, training all major muscle groups and motor skills. The reality is much further off than most people realise: globally, only around 23% of 11–17 year-olds meet that minimum. The headline matters because designing outdoor spaces that actually appeal to older kids isn't a "nice to have" — it's one of the levers that nudges that percentage up.
What four things actually motivate tweens and teens to be active outdoors?
KOMPAN's Play Institute ran a major study in cooperation with the University of Southern Denmark, using GPS and activity trackers to see what tweens actually did in playgrounds (not what they said they liked). Four motivators came out on top: ball games, areas away from the main playground, climbing, and a combination of active participation and spectatorship — performing for and watching each other. Once you see those four, a lot of the design choices stop feeling like guesses and start feeling like answers to specific questions.
Why do tweens and teens want areas away from the main playground?
Because the main playground reads as a children's space — and this age group is doing the work of *not being a child* every day. A separate area, often outside the fenced playground itself, signals "this is for me, not the toddlers". It doesn't need to be elaborate; a piece of equipment, some seating, or a corner with a different feel is often enough. The independence — being out of direct adult sightlines, having their own zone — is doing as much work as the equipment.
What is the Make Space for Girls initiative?
It's a campaign that's been quietly reshaping how the sector talks about playground design. The starting observation: when councils think of older-children play space, they tend to default to a football pitch — which by then mostly serves boys. Girls aren't being deliberately excluded, they're just falling outside the frame of what gets designed. Make Space for Girls is pushing the conversation toward outdoor space that actively works for teenage girls, not just space they can technically use.
What kinds of equipment work well for engaging teenage girls?
The same KOMPAN research, sliced for girls specifically, lights up a few categories: swings (especially basket swings and group swings), trim trails, climbing, ball games beyond football, and spinning equipment. The pattern is that these are pieces that support being sociable while being active — moving and chatting at the same time, sharing a piece of equipment with friends, not having to look directly at each other to interact.
Why are swings so good for older children, and what kinds work best?
Swings are one of the simplest, cheapest interventions for this age group, and they're routinely under-deployed. Basket swings hold three or four bodies at once, lying down or sitting; they're inclusive (very little core strength needed), they're social, and they invite kids to stay on for far longer than a single-seat swing. Flat swings sit kids side by side for conversation. Group swings — where everyone swings together with feet meeting in the middle — work especially well in larger outdoor spaces. The unlock is to think about swing placement beyond the fenced toddler playground.
What is open-ended (non-prescriptive) play, and why does it matter for older kids?
Younger children's play equipment tends to be highly prescriptive — this is a slide, you slide down it; this is a spring animal, you bounce on it. Older kids reject that. They want pieces of equipment that don't tell them what to do, so they can decide for themselves what the piece is for: a structure to sit on, hang off, perform on, or just lean against to chat. Designing for tweens and teens means leaving room for that interpretation — what looks underspecified to an adult often reads as freedom to the kids actually using it.
Why are seating and hangout spaces just as important as play equipment for older children?
A big part of how this group "plays" is actually socialising — sitting, chatting, watching each other, being part of a group. Creative seating, hammocks, planters that double as benches, swings used as seats: pieces of equipment that invite hanging out are part of the activity, not a separate amenity. Treating seating as an afterthought is part of why older kids stop using a space; treating it as a design feature in its own right is part of how to bring them back.
What's the single biggest mindset shift councils should make when designing outdoor spaces for tweens and teens?
Stop thinking of them as "older children who need a shelter to gather under." The instinct to provide a shelter — a roof, a bench, somewhere out of the rain — is often the only nod councils make toward this age group, and on its own it's not enough. Get creative with outdoor spaces. Design areas that invite movement and socialising at the same time, away from the toddler equipment, in places that signal *this was thought about for you*.