No more swinging good times: The changing face of the Singapore playground

Ms Amber Lim, 31, account manager at playground-equipment manufacturer Kompan Singapore, points out a few issues with sand, namely maintenance and hygiene. It gets compacted over time, and needs to be raked or topped up every other month. Sand also wears down the nylon strands coating metal wires in some playground equipment. 

Besides, she muses: “What’s stopping the sand playground, which is open to everyone, from being a giant litter box for dogs and cats?” 

Growing risk aversion also means certain structures such as firemen poles, merry-go-rounds and banister bars have grown increasingly rare. 

“As soon as a few parents say it’s not safe, it becomes hard for us to propose these elements, even though by right, they pass our strict safety standards,” she says.  

While the company recognises that safety is a critical priority, it believes that risk, when appropriately designed and managed, plays an essential role in child development.

“if you don’t take risks in a safe environment, where are you going to take it? At home? Kids will start climbing doorframes. They are going to do handstands on the sofa and stuff like that.” 

Better, then, for them to run wild in a space that is tested and padded with EPDM (a synthetic rubber) flooring calculated to prevent fatal injuries.

Ms Evelyn Chan, 36, a senior occupational therapist at NTUC First Campus, echoes this sentiment. “By taking risks, children will be able to learn more about their bodies, what their bodies can do or cannot do. They develop a protective mechanism because they learn that if they do this or lean over in this way, they might fall down. So, it makes sure that they learn how to prevent themselves from getting seriously injured.” 

“Risk should come from navigating space, not from faulty equipment or poor design,” she says. 

Kompan’s approach, therefore, is to minimise the likelihood of serious injuries while letting children challenge themselves on elements like its supernova spinner – a slated, rotating ring which children can balance on while seated, lying or standing – in Ubi Grove. 

It subjects new concepts or equipment not yet covered by existing regulations to a rigorous risk-assessment process that includes early indoor trials and long-term field tests in controlled environments, to observe how children interact with the product in intended and unintended ways. 

After all, prescription is no guarantee of behaviour when children are involved. “No matter how safe the playground is, kids just somehow find ways to make it more ‘dangerous’. They will climb all over the structures and dangle from random poles,” observes father-of-three Daniel Ng, 38.

Together with his wife Gina Cheong, 37, he runs Aww Media, a company specialising in branding videos, and reviews playgrounds across Singapore on the couple’s Sunrise Odyssey social media accounts. 

“More importantly, parents and caretakers need to play an active role in ensuring their kids’ safety, and knowing where to draw the line. I mean, kids will be kids, we can’t stop them from climbing. The least we can do is to ensure their safety and be there to catch them if they were to slip.” 

Getting playgrounds right is crucial, stresses Ms Yi. While these playgrounds may be physically safe, they pose another risk to children. 

Those with no access to meaningful play spaces may “end up stuck at home, sitting in front of screens, overstimulated and underactive”, she says. 

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong sounded a similar warning in his 2025 National Day Rally speech, encouraging children to spend more time outdoors playing, making friends and being active, rather than being babysat by technology. 

“We are already seeing an epidemic of mental health issues in youth and children, and part of this is because kids have nowhere to relax, let off steam or simply play after a long school day,” adds Ms Yi. “Playgrounds are not just a luxury – they’re critical community spaces for healthy development.” 

But what makes a playground fun enough to occupy a restless child for an afternoon? 

To Mr Lai, the key is having a mix of age-appropriate elements and popular features such as slides, swings and trampolines. “Swings, in particular, are always a hit,” he says, citing the example of the playground on the fourth floor at Nex mall in Serangoon, where the two swings are often in constant use. 

A spacious layout with multiple slides or activity zones also helps ease congestion, especially during peak hours, he adds. 

Ms Chan takes note of environmental factors too: Is the playground located in a shaded area? Is there enough ventilation? Is it sufficiently far away from cars and roads? 

She hopes to come across more swings, and high elements such as rock walls and flying foxes – which tend to excite children – as well as inclusive designs which build on existing efforts. HDB rolled out guidelines to incorporate inclusive play elements into new playgrounds in 2014, resulting in the introduction of features like ramps. 

“There shouldn’t be a case where I go to a playground and find that it caters only to older or younger children. These spaces are also used by children who are neurodivergent or have physical disabilities, so they should be able to play alongside their peers instead of sitting in a corner,” she says. 

Additionally, she would like to see playgrounds integrate nature – grass patches, for instance – in a more effective way. 

To Ms Aminah Abdul Latif, co-founder of Hundred Paths forest school, children benefit immensely from exploring the great outdoors. In forest school, children aged 3½ to 12 are taken to a park – Tampines Eco Green, for instance, or Dairy Farm Nature Park. They put down their bags, walk around, figure out the space, climb and roll down a hill, or play with loose materials. 

“The possibilities are endless for them. We want the children to be able to think about what they can do with the space, to go deeper and take their time, instead of just following what is already set for them,” says the 41-year-old mother of two. Such an environment, she adds, stretches their imagination and improves their posture and focus. 

Ms Lim points out that the National Parks Board has tried to include natural elements in its playgrounds. The nature play area in Pek Kio Park, for one, contains sand, pea gravel, wood and log stumps.

Swan-Li Singapore has manufactured and installed such biophilic playgrounds at locations like Fort Canning Park and Singapore Zoo. And while housing estates seem to be steering clear of such materials for now – mainly due to the maintenance required – it has found other ways to incorporate nature motifs into the heartland.

“To achieve a similar aesthetic without the high maintenance, we use a recycled wood-plastic composite that looks like real timber, but is weather-resistant, easy to maintain and sustainable,” says Swan-Li’s business manager Paul Chua, 38. 

He adds that while modular playgrounds remain common due to their cost efficiency, there has been an uptick in demand for customised and thematic design-and-build playgrounds, like fruit-themed ones in Tengah. 

In some new estates, the generous amount of allocated space also paves the way for the inclusion of diverse structures, such as sky bridges and swings that fit up to six children. 

The size of playgrounds was reduced in the mid-1980s, when HDB decided to spread smaller playgrounds over housing estates to improve access to play areas. These days, however, instead of having reduced play areas dotted around a neighbourhood, Mr Chua observes that such spaces are combined into a larger whole to serve as a social hub where residents can gather. 

“Often, these central spaces feature a ‘wow’ structure that sort of becomes a landmark for the neighbourhood. There’s also been a lot more collaboration between landscape architects and playground designers, so play areas now blend better into the overall landscape design instead of feeling like an add-on,” he notes.

Parents such as Mr Ng and Ms Cheong cheer the new generation of playgrounds. “The playgrounds are different today, which is a good thing,” says Mr Ng. “They are getting creative with all sorts of themes, like insects and animals. The ones from the past have a standardised look, and every playground has almost the same few elements in it.” 

Ms Yi is encouraged by Tengah’s diverse play zones too, and hopes that playground design will continue growing in a more thoughtful direction.

On her wishlist are more open-ended elements; play spaces conceptualised with the involvement of child-development experts such as occupational therapists and physiotherapists; and effective structures closer to the heartland and schools, not just in select areas. 

And she wants to start the conversation now, so that people can push for better design in their neighbourhoods, before Singapore’s memories of lively, boundless play get buried in the sands of time. 

Where: Admiralty Park, 31 Riverside Road 
Open: 24 hours 

This sprawling play area stretches over 7ha and includes 26 slides, as well as a variety of swings. The expression swing in the junior play area, for instance, is combined with a bucket seat so parents can swing with their toddler. There is a swing for wheelchair users too, located at the inclusive-playground section of the park. 

Where: Tiong Bahru Park, 1 Henderson Road
Open: 24 hours 

This sand playground is home to a derailed life-size train. Children can climb on board and explore its tilted carriages, before exiting via a slide. There are also several swings and horse-shaped spring riders for those in search of more vigorous action. 

Where: 859D Tampines Walk
Open: 24 hours 

There is no sand at this sand quarry-themed playground in Tampines GreenSpring, but there are plenty of nods to the history of the town which, at its peak, had more than 20 sand quarries. For instance, the sand-mining tower – fitted with an enclosed tube slide – as well as the excavator monkey bars. There are also swings, trampolines and play panels for younger children. 

Where: Jurong Lake Gardens, 104 Yuan Ching Road
Open: 8am to 10pm, Tuesdays to Sundays 

This 2.3ha nature-inspired playground has 13 adventure stations, all inspired by animals found in Jurong Lake Gardens. Children are encouraged to mimic the movement of these creatures as they play – leaping like squirrels, slithering down the slides like snakes or swinging through the air like the wings of a bird.