In short, adventure playgrounds are places where children can create and modify their own environments, rather than relying on rigid equipment that only serves a limit set of programmed purposes: “In a sense, you and I have always played in ‘adventure playgrounds.’ We created a fort in the kitchen cabinets, jumped from couch to couch across oceans; we snuck out through a hole in the fence to a new world. We climbed trees and hid in bushes. We played in the mud and the rain. We chased each other, made secret worlds …”

Yeah, the concept here applies to kids, but it’s also a rich source of ideas for us adults, too. How often do we just accept our surroundings as fixed, non-transformable environments? What if we altered our everyday areas to match our moods, needs, you name it?

If you’ll excuse me…I’m off to turn my cubicle into a fort.