A Playworker’s Musings on the Perceptions and Importance of ’Mess’ in a Play Space

Abstract

The aesthetics of any given play environment is often subject to immense scrutiny, often at the behest of adult agendas. This paper will, from a playwork practitioner’s perspective, discuss how aspects of perceptive mess in a play space positively affect play, the physical opportunities for children, their wellbeing, sense of belonging and their ability to create a sense of order as they see it. This will be juxtaposed against the situations in which children find themselves, by adult design, that paradoxically have the opposite effect. The author has drawn heavily from aspects of playwork theory and practice in the development of and discussion of these ideas with the goal of giving motivation to adults to revise their perspectives and perceptions of space and opportunity.