I’ve recently returned from a few days at the Academy of Urbanism’s annual congress, this year hosted in the fabulous city of Utrecht. I can’t say enough good things about the city as an exemplar of urban design and liveability, and the genuinely inspiring work of the city council to make their vision of healthy urban living a reality.

But what particularly struck me about the city was its accessibility for children. I was deeply impressed by the way that play and space for children is built into the fabric of the city, and it got me thinking about the role of the civil engineer in making this a reality.

Most obvious is our role in street design. We know that street layouts that reduce and slow traffic, and reclaim street space designated for cars for other users, are perhaps the most important ways of making more child-friendly urban areas. Streets have traditionally been sites for free-form, creative play, but the encroachment of the car has rendered streets dangerous for children in many cases. Designing narrower carriageways and wider pavements, reducing parking and tightening kerb radii to reduce turn speeds, for example, are all firmly in our gift as engineers, and can go a long way towards making our streets hospitable for children once again.

There has been plenty said, with good reason, about the Netherlands’ leadership in promoting cycling and challenging car dominance. What I would add from my own perspective, cycling and walking around Utrecht, was the municipality’s success in utilising alternative street materials. Clay paving rather than asphalt is used throughout the city, creating the feeling that streets are shared spaces for play and recreation as well as transportation, for pedestrians and cyclists over motorists (see image 1, above). The city also undermines the notion prevailing in this country that non-asphalt surfaces are attractive but impractical, with paving being difficult to maintain and repair. Having seen simple patch repairs being completed by highways teams on several occasions during the few days I spent in Utrecht, it seems we need to go further in challenging our own highways authorities to embrace these materials.

I was also incredibly impressed by much of the ordinary public realm I observed in Utrecht. The sight of children of all ages enjoying a play fountain in a residential square was particularly powerful. Not just that this feature had obviously been put there for the express purpose of play, but that play had been embedded in the heart of the community, rather than segregated in a fenced-off playground. The fountain was surrounded by seating, with cafes spilling out into the square and parents sat drinking coffee and chatting while their children splashed. It sounds idyllic, but it is eminently achievable in this country too if we are willing to push ourselves as engineers to embrace more creative uses of public space.

The schools we passed in Utrecht also caught my attention, most obviously because typically they are not fenced off but merge into the streets and public spaces around them. Once again, this is emblematic of urban design that puts children in the heart of the community, rather than separating them off for reasons of perceived safety or convenience. I was also bowled over by the quality and simplicity of the play spaces provided at the average school – spaces that promote physical adventurousness and creativity, embedded in nature (see image 2 above). There are a few lessons for us engineers here. First, and most practically, we don’t need to go out of our way in all contexts to make spaces flat and neat. Scruffy, uneven surfaces can be an excellent canvas for play and can be built very economically. Second and more profoundly, it challenges us to be far more ambitious and creative about the spaces we provide for children as standard around schools, in public spaces and in housing developments. A fenced asphalt playground in a designated corner of a site might be easy to design and deliver, but it isn’t inspiring. And our kids, particularly those from the least advantaged backgrounds, deserve better.

We know the Netherlands has a much longer history of opening up their cities to children, starting with the construction of the public play spaces designed by the architect Aldo van Eyck in post-war Amsterdam. But we can be equally ambitious here in the UK. I know that our landscape architect and urban planning colleagues are thinking constantly about how to reflect the needs of children in their designs, but too often I see this being underappreciated and in some cases undermined by the engineering profession. Utrecht’s example shows us that a built environment designed with children in mind is not only desirable, it is practical and deliverable.