In the years before puberty, children appreciate purple space and brown space. One of the fathers of town and country planning, Patrick Geddes, had a special understanding of the males in this group, who love dirt, construction and exploration. He observed that in most parks:
... little girls may sit on the grass. But the boys? They are at most granted a cricket-pitch, or lent a space between football goals, but otherwise are jealously watched, as potential savages, who on the least symptom of their natural activities of wigwam-building, cave-digging, stream-damming, and so on must instantly be chevied away, and are lucky if not hounded out of the place. (Geddes, 1915)
A real children's playground?