The Cubbies: The Battle for Australia's First Adventure Playground chronicles the improbable fight to establish a patch of Fitzroy dirt as a genuinely child-directed space — a story of scavenged timber, illicit fires, and institutional resistance set against the charged optimism of Whitlam-era Melbourne.
About This Book
In an era defined by risk aversion and over-programmed play environments, this book arrives as a pointed reminder of what children's autonomy once looked like in practice. Joan Healey traces the birth of Australia's first true adventure playground — a place where kids built cubbies, tended gardens, launched boats, and kept pets without adult direction — through her own direct involvement in bringing the concept from London to Fitzroy in the 1970s. What emerges is as much social history as it is a meditation on children's rights and the politics of public space: a story of funding crises, police confrontations, church opposition, and the quiet determination of playground workers who refused to let the experiment die. Essential reading for those working at the intersection of landscape architecture, child development, and urban design.
Key Features
- 280 pages of narrative history drawn from personal experience, observation, and the political battles surrounding child-directed play
- Written by Joan Healey, who initiated and lived through the playground's founding years
- Published by Monash University Publishing, ISBN 9781922979698
What You'll Discover
- How the adventure playground model travelled from London to inner-city Melbourne, and the cultural translation that journey required
- The specific institutional forces — local police, the Catholic church, funding bodies — that attempted to shut the playground down, and the politicians and bureaucrats who defended it
- What Fitzroy's transformation from working-class neighbourhood to emerging inner-city hub in the 1970s looked like from the ground level of a contested public space
- Why the Fitzroy adventure playground's survival inspired the broader rise of the model across Australia, and what that legacy means against today's heavily regulated play environments
About the Author
Joan Healey brought the adventure playground concept to Fitzroy from London and was present through the turbulent early years of the project's establishment. She writes from direct participation in the events described, grounding this history in lived experience rather than retrospective analysis.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 280
- Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.4 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781922979698
- Publisher: Monash University Publishing
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Landscape architects and urban designers interested in child-centred public space, historians of Australian social policy, educators and play theorists, and anyone working on the design or advocacy of contemporary play environments.