The role of visibility as a predictor of children’s location choices in outdoor school grounds across age and gender

Children’s activities in school grounds are shaped by spatial design, affordances and social dynamics rather than preference alone. This study examines how children of different ages and gender use playground spaces, and how the design and visual depth of the environment shape these dynamics. Playground observations were conducted in two primary schools, one with integrated ball game fields and one with spatially separated fields. A novel method based on ten-second movement trajectories was developed to capture the fluid nature of playground life, from which heatmaps of use were produced. Playground use was analyzed using descriptive statistics and mixed-effects regression models incorporating Visual Mean Depth (VMD), a metric describing visual centrality. VMD significantly predicted children’s location choices, with associations varying by age and gender. Integrated ball game layouts in School A increased boys’ dominance over central and visible areas, pushing anyone not engaged in ball games toward the periphery. By contrast, School B’s separation of sports fields supported more equitable use of central areas, enabling younger children and girls to share visible and non-visible spaces. These findings highlight visibility as a key dimension shaping spatial use, showing that while age and gender matter, design choices, such as the placement of ball game fields, amplify or mitigate these patterns. In this sense, the visibility properties of playground environments shape the affordance landscape within which different forms of play become possible for different age and gender groups. The study underscores the need to consider not only equipment variety but also spatial configuration in playground design to support more equitable use of outdoor spaces of primary schools.