CAP.CO - Creating Adventurous Places Ltd.

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CAP.CO - Creating Adventurous Places Ltd.

Creators of adventurous play and seriously fun spaces and places.

20/05/2026

Back in 2019 we began working with the Duchy of Cornwall to create a new play destination within Poundbury - the urban extension championed by King Charles III as a response to poor modern planning and placemaking.

CAP.CO developed a creative play concept inspired by the distinctive architecture, landmarks and building forms found throughout Poundbury and the wider Dorset region. Elements such as the Buttercross, Whistling Witch tower and Brownsword building informed a scheme rooted strongly in local identity, placemaking and sense of place.

Developed in collaboration with and delivered by their construction team, the project became a great example of combining CAP.CO’s placemaking and conceptual design ideas with Timberplay’s play systems to create a distinctive and long-lasting community space at the heart of The Great Field.

16/04/2026

Celebrating the legacy of Marjory Allen of Hurtwood: Why her work still matters

Fifty years after Allen’s passing, many of the challenges she spoke about are still with us - and in some ways they’ve grown.

Children today often have:

- Less access to independent outdoor play
- Highly risk-averse playgrounds
- A more structured, time managed life
- Fewer opportunities to experiment and create

Adventure play offers a powerful response to all of this.

The kinds of environments Allen championed help children develop:

- Confidence
- Resilience
- Problem-solving skills
- Collaboration
- Practical creativity

In a world increasingly shaped by screens and schedules, these qualities are for us, more important than ever.

The thinking Marjory Allen helped introduce continues to influence play today, from:

- Adventure playgrounds across the UK and Europe
- Forest schools and outdoor learning
- Contemporary adventure play design
- The growing recognition that managed risk is an important and positive part of play

Many of the most exciting play spaces being built today owe something to the ideas she championed. Her work reminds us that great play environments aren’t just about equipment. They’re about freedom, imagination and giving children the chance to shape the world around them.

Marjory Allen helped change how we think about childhood itself.

Her vision was simple: play should be messy, creative, adventurous and not limited by the imaginations of adults.

Half a century later, that vision feels just as relevant - and even more important.

At CAP.CO we’re proud to continue flying her flag. We're building adventure play inspired by the passion, thinking and many of the lessons she taught us along the way.

14/04/2026

Celebrating the legacy of Marjory Allen of Hurtwood: Bringing adventure play to Britain

In post-war Britain, bomb sites and small sites between damaged buildings had already become unofficial playgrounds for many children.

Allen saw that instead of removing these opportunities in the name of safety, we should be designing spaces that supported this kind of adventurous, creative play.

Through her campaigning, writing and professional work she helped introduce the idea of adventure playgrounds to Britain. Her book Planning for Play (1968) became one of the most influential texts ever written about play in the UK.

Her message was simple: Children need space, freedom and the chance to shape their own play.

She believed play should be:

- Creative rather than prescriptive
- Challenging rather than overly controlled
- Led by children rather than directed by adults

Those ideas helped inspire dozens of adventure playgrounds across the country.

Marjorie Allen’s ideas challenged the way playgrounds were traditionally designed. Most playgrounds at the time were fixed, orderly and built primarily around control and safety. Adventure playgrounds turned that thinking on its head. Instead of fixed equipment, they embraced:

- Loose parts - Materials children could move, build with and transform.
- Managed risk - Opportunities to climb higher, build bigger and test their abilities.
- Ownership - Spaces shaped and evolved by the children using them.
- Collaboration - Encouraging children to work together and achieve more.

These principles are still at the heart of how many of us think about play today.

11/04/2026

Celebrating the legacy of Marjorie Allen of Hurtwood

On April 11th 2026 we mark the 50th anniversary of the passing of Marjorie Allen of Hurtwood — a remarkable landscape architect and campaigner whose ideas helped transform the way children play in the UK.

At a time when most playgrounds were little more than neat rows of swings, roundabouts and metal climbing frames, Marjorie Allen was championing something very different. She believed children needed places where they could explore, build, take risks and shape their own environment.

Today we call this adventure play, but in the late 1940s and 1950s it was a radical new idea. As we have learnt since, it was one that would change the way we played forever.

Allen’s inspiration came from Denmark. In the 1940s she visited the Emdrup Adventure Playground in Copenhagen, often described as the world’s first adventure playground. What she saw there was extraordinary...

Children weren’t simply using equipment that adults had designed for them. Instead, they were building the playground themselves.

With scrap timber, rope, tyres, tools and a huge amount of imagination, they created huts, towers, bridges, dens and teetering climbing structures. The playground was supervised, but not controlled. Adults acted more like trusted, experienced, older friends, who were there to advise when needed but mainly leaving children free to lead their own play.

Allen immediately recognised how powerful this kind of play could be.

10/04/2026

What Play Can Learn From Children's Stories: A Final Thought

If there’s one thing children’s literature teaches us, it’s this.

Play isn’t just an activity to occupy kids. It's critical for their personal, physical and social development.

Children aren’t looking for perfectly designed spaces. Done is always better than perfect. They are however looking for places where something might happen. Where they can test themselves, lose themselves, and find themselves again - without ever really being lost or alone.

Places that feel, in some small way, like stepping into their own story, where the ending isn't clear or yet decided. The best play is where stories are discovered or created by working with others to imagine their own beginning, middle and end.

09/04/2026

What Play Can Learn From Children’s Stories: Stories we tell together

From Matilda outsmarting the adults to the friendships built around the Hundred Acre Wood, stories we love are very rarely solitary.

Children use play to explore relationships, roles, and identity.

The design of the play can support this too, by creating:

- Spaces for collaboration and interactive play
- Smaller, quieter areas for intimate storytelling
- Elements that encourage role-play and imagination such as shops, stages and dens

These are the places where confidence grows through social interaction.

Hit the link in our bio to read the full article.

08/04/2026

What Play Can Learn From Children’s Stories: It's all about the journey

In The Hobbit, from the warm dark home of a Hobbit hole, to the mountains of Erebor, the story unfolds step by step, decision by decision.

Play should feel the same.

Rather than a single destination, great play spaces offer:

- Routes that unfold gradually
- Changes in level, texture, and challenge
- Moments of pause, viewpoint, and choice

It’s not just about what children do - it’s about where they go and how they get there.

Hit the link in our bio to read the full article.

07/04/2026

What Play Can Learn From Children’s Stories: A threshold into discovery

In The Secret Garden, a locked door leads to transformation. In The Chronicles of Narnia, climbing through the back of a wardrobe leads you into a whole other world.

Even The Little Prince begins with a shift in perspective - seeing what others cannot.

What these stories remind us is simple: the magic often begins at the threshold.

In play design, that might be:

- A narrow entrance that opens into something unexpected
- A tunnel, a gap, a secret entrance that reveals a hidden space
- A moment of transition from the everyday to the imaginative

A cursory look would mistake these for features when in fact, we know they’re invitations or markers to where your adventure begins..

Hit the link in our bio to read the full article.

06/04/2026

What Play Can Learn From Children’s Stories: Creating narrative anchors

Think of James' giant peach. It's a single, unforgettable place that becomes an entire world.

Children’s stories are full of these anchors. Whether they are dens, castles, hideouts or in the case of the least 'childreny' of children's books, Lord of the Flies, it's islands.

In play design, these become feature towers, tree top platforms, or central hubs at the heart of the play space to gather together as a family.

Structures suggest a story without ever dictating it and encourage children to return and make their own stories, over and over again.

The key is restraint. Don't over complicate the play or dictate the routes too heavily. The best spaces don’t tell children what or how to play - they give them just enough to begin.

Link in bio to read the full article.

04/04/2026

What Play Can Learn From Children’s Stories: Seeing our world differently.

In Winnie-the-Pooh, the forest is a friend. In The Little Prince, the everyday landscape becomes a place of profound meaning.

“What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

That line could just as easily apply to play.

Natural unstructured environments don’t prescribe behaviour. They invite imaginative play. A stick becomes a wand, a conker can become a rare prize and the Little Prince's rose is a symbol of love and security.

But perhaps more importantly, nature slows things down. It creates space for children to explore together, to wonder, to imagine.

We'll be sharing our expanded thoughts on this over the coming days, if you can't wait, hit the link in our bio to read the full article.

Address

Scottow Enterprise Park, 139 Lamas Road
Norwich
NR105FB

Telephone

+44 800 009 6907

Website

http://www.wearecapco.com/

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