School Playground Design: What Are the Priorities in the Face of Global Warming?

Beyond recess, this place is a living space that hosts a variety of activities: playing, learning, running, resting, riding bikes, eating…
The design of the schoolyard is also part of a comprehensive vision for the city, which incorporates green spaces.
How can all these factors be balanced to create a cohesive project?
As a designer of street furniture, Polymobyl supports local governments from the initial assessment through installation, helping to create pleasant and resilient public spaces.

Why and how should we incorporate greenery into school grounds?

Urban planning and schoolyard design face largely the same challenges. When well-designed, outdoor spaces improve the quality of life for both children and adults. They promote physical activity and enhance the school’s image.

However, when designing a schoolyard, it is also important to consider its uses beyond play.

Provide shaded areas

School playgrounds are still all too often entirely paved and frequently lack shaded areas. Installing a pergola in a schoolyard helps ensure everyone’s comfort and safety, especially during the hot months.

Polymobyl offers large-scale urban pergolas and custom-designed shade structures, perfect for secondary schools that accommodate hundreds of students. These structures can be greened using a planter and a trellis to support climbing plants. Living partitions are also an option on many models. Combined with benches, they create comfortable and harmonious oases of coolness.

Incorporating Vegetation and Biodiversity

Greening public spaces helps combat urban heat islands, particularly in places frequented by vulnerable groups such as children. Urban planters address several interrelated needs:

In preschool and elementary school, child-height planters help raise young children’s awareness of biodiversity or create community gardens.
In middle and high schools, full-height planters help organize the space and facilitate the creation of above-ground green spaces.
In higher education institutions, high-capacity models such as the CUB Podium XL (up to 800 liters) allow for the planting of small trees without the need for excavation or earthwork.

Create a break area

When the weather is nice, the courtyard is also where children share a snack and teachers enjoy a cup of coffee. Adding a NUT picnic table, paired with benches from the same line, helps create a suitable dining area. This sturdy set is particularly popular for setting up middle and high school playgrounds, where students are more likely to sit down than to run around.

The natural look of wood blends well into green spaces or under covered walkways. For a customized setup, Polymobyl also offers high tables and standing-seating units, perfect for setting up a break area for between classes.

Enable outdoor activities

To cope with the sometimes unbearable temperatures in classrooms, many teachers are opting to hold classes outdoors. A well-designed schoolyard, with tables and benches under a pergola, can host a variety of educational activities: lessons, workshops, reading, nature exploration, and more.

From concept to construction and installation, Polymobyl can design custom spaces for these new educational uses. This approach also serves as a practical way to bring greenery to urban spaces.

How do you set up a bike parking area at a school?

Cycling is a natural way for children to get around, especially in urban areas. As for adults, the green transition is increasingly encouraging them to choose sustainable modes of transportation.School grounds still rarely include high-quality bike shelters. Yet a well-designed, secure, and easily accessible area provides a tangible incentive to ride a bike to school.

Open bicycle shelters

For elementary and middle schools, the 25°&Cie line is an ideal solution. These open, modular shelters fit seamlessly into any schoolyard design project. They can accommodate both students and staff.

Each shelter has 6 to 20 spaces and can be combined with as many other modules as needed. The open structure allows for quick and unobstructed access, ideal for morning and evening traffic flows.

Modular Bike Shelters

High schools often have significant bicycle parking needs. In addition to a large number of users, high schools may accommodate electric bikes, cargo bikes, scooters, and more.

Polymobyl designs long, multi-module, or custom-made shelters. Each includes bike racks to maximize capacity, as well as charging or repair stations. The shelter can also incorporate solar-powered lighting to ensure cyclists’ safety when days are short.

All Polymobyl bike shelters can be customized with RAL-colored powder coating or laser cutting. This allows them to blend seamlessly with both the school’s architecture and its visual identity.

As an expert in public space planning and furniture design, Polymobyl has long incorporated greenery into urban spaces. For schoolyard design, the team offers comprehensive support: site assessment, custom design, customization, and installation throughout France.

Bringing greenery to cities and creating urban green spaces also involves rethinking the outdoor areas of school facilities—and Polymobyl can help you with that.