Robin Moore, MCP, Honorary ASLA

Bio

Robin Moore holds degrees in architecture (London University) and urban planning (MIT), and for most of his career has worked in the field of landscape architecture as educator, researcher, and consultant. Moore is an international authority on the design of children’s play and learning environments, user needs research, and participatory public open space design. His designs for children’s spaces in the USA include the well-known Environmental Yard, in Berkeley, California (recipient in 1988 of the Outstanding Contribution to the Practice of Design Research by the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA).

As a design consultant, Moore has been involved in the design of the Kids Together Park, Cary; Blanchie Carter Discovery Park, at Southern Pines Primary School (featured in the New York Times, October 1999); the Playspace Family Play Center in Raleigh; and Playport in the Raleigh-Durham Airport. Design projects in Argentina include the Lekotek Play Library; Vilas Racket Club child and family center; Friends Club Adventure Playpark, and the Ecological Village. Currently, he is a public participation consultant to an interdisciplinary team working with the City of Lisbon, Portugal. He was design consultant to the Chicago Zoological Society for the programming and design and of Explore!, the new children’s facility at Brookfield Zoo, Illinois; and for the City of Durham for the programming and design of renovations to Duke Park as well as the development of the Durham Parks and Recreation Master Plan. Through the NC State University Natural Learning Initiative, Moore is currently involved in the design and/or renovation of dozens of outdoor spaces for preschools, special education facilities, and schoolgrounds in North Carolina.

Recently completed works include renovation of the outdoor play and learning environments at the Bright Horizons Family Solutions Child Development Center, Research Triangle Park. Robin Moore has won many awards for his contributions to the field of design. Countries including Sweden, Japan, and Argentina have honored him, where his work in the design of outdoor play facilities for children and families is used as a model. Moore has many years of international experience in design facilitation and participatory design program development, including the North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, N.C. Robin Moore is a member of the eight-country Growing Up in Cities action research project sponsored by UNESCO and is co-director of the Buenos Aires and Jordan field projects.

He has lectured in many countries on issues of childhood and environment and responses to those issues through landscape design. Moore is the author or co-author of Childhood’s Domain: Play and Place in Child Development (1986), Plants for Play (1993), the Play for All Guidelines (1987), the Complete Playground Book (1993), Natural Learning (1997), and numerous articles on the use of the outdoor environment by children and youth and families, and their involvement in the planning and design process. He was the principal investigator for the US Access Board update of the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards for Children’s Environments. Professor Moore is past president of the International Association for the Child’s Right to Play (IPA), and for twenty years was editor of the IPA magazine, PlayRights.

Click to read his 2005 December Commencement Address.

Area(s) of Expertise

Children and family environments; health-promoting urban design; social assessment of public environments; participatory processes in community design