playscapes

Playground Den-Building and Kids Play DIY

2012-05-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

Playscapes friend Tim Gill has just posted about the den-building provisions on the playground of Berwick Fields Primary school in ~~England~~ (Australia, oops!) which you'll want to read. Kids have always built playhouses out of whatever materials they can find around, of course. But a key to encouraging this behavior, whether in a multi-user playspace or in your own backyard, is to provide a simple pole or a frame to help the constructions stand up.

Den-building poles at Berwick are decorated by each year's class. Photo by Tim Gill

Thurton Primary School provides simple frames to enable den-building. Photo by Natasha Lyster

Den poles and frames are a simple addition to any play space; then just let the children gather their own sticks and branches and build away.

Note that Tim's post also gives some insight into the management of dens on a school playground: "the only rule is that dens have to be demolished at the end of each session. This is to allow more children to take part. Before the rule was introduced, children were starting to get territorial about their cubbies."

Unlike the more permanent constructs allowed at adventure playgrounds, play dens typically don't last long. So they're ideal for documenting at diy.org, a beautiful new site and app well-summarized as an 'online refrigerator for kids artwork', (see also a discussion of the diy project at c/net). Several play projects have already been posted...I really like the idea of kids being able to document their ephemeral, outdoor play creations in this way!

Parc Des Cormailles, Agence TER, Ivry-sur-Seine France, 2005

2012-05-21T07:49:00.000-07:00


photo by Eloise

When France's Agence TER transformed an old industrial site in Ivry-sur-Seine, they preserved a pile of rubble as the site's 'beauty spot' and cleverly added a chic playground to its heavily sloping side.

[source]

Like the snail mounts of Elizabethan England the hill includes a winding spiral pathway to get to the top, where an elevated belevedere provides 'high chairs' for playful viewing. Other parts of the park include a "graffiti-allowed" wall and canals with the classic French toy sailing boats.

[source]

Thanks to reader Eloise, who lives nearby, for submitting this playground, which is yet another example of how playgrounds-should-not-be-flat whenever possible. Agence TER's decision to preserve topography makes for an exciting,vertiginous play experience that a flat site just can't provide. It's also interesting for all ages...older kids love the steep climbing wall but younger kids can be seen crawling up the more gently sloping areas, too.

photo by Eloise


photo by Eloise

photo by Eloise

Backyard Sandbox, 1922, Frances Benjamin Johnston

2012-05-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

Dr. Henry Alexander Murray, Jr., house, 129 East 69th Street, New York, New York.
From the Frances Benjamin Johnston collection at the Library of Congress

Longtime Playscapes readers know that the playground began with the sandbox. This historic example (1922) of a backyard sandpit is from the photography of Frances Benjamin Johnston in the stunning new book Gardens for a Beautiful America, 1895-1935. By Sam Watters in collaboration with the Library of Congress, published by Acanthus Press.

Cave Playground Tunnels by Entre Prises

2012-05-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

For those of you that thought the Krabbelknoten was a bit claustrophobic, take a look at the spelunking simulators designed by the firm Entre Prises in conjunction with the British Caving Association (an interesting play design overlap, there!).

photo by David Cooke

Their Speleo System replicates natural cave features in modular sections that can be interchanged and even rotated to provide a variety of challenges, with the goal of introducing people to the sport of caving and preparing them for below-ground exploration.

They provide the 'Linear', the 'Arch', the 'Chamber', and of course, the 'Squeeze'! As well as make full artificial caves and enormous climbing walls for cruise-ships and casinos; those adult reincarnations of the playground.

[Found at the always-interesting home of architectural conjecture: BLDGBLOG.]

Host a Children's Playground Workshop like WhATA, Sofia Bulgaria, 2011

2012-05-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest things about writing the blog is hearing from those of you who are making new playscapes, or improving the playgrounds where you're at. Just recently I contacted a school about their self-built natural playground and asked them why they made it and they said 'well, your blog, actually', which is a nice sort of circle.

One of my favorites of these sort of letters came from WhATA, an architectural group in Sofia, Bulgaria. Tasked with organizing a leave-a-mark-in-the-city workshop with the Chicago architect Thomas Kong at Sofia Architecture Week 2011, they chose to focus on playgrounds and to use one of the Playscapes blog mottoes: "Because a playground doesn't have to cost a million bucks and come in a box. In fact, it's better if it doesn't" as inspiration.

Their Playground Workshop serves as a great model for anyone looking to jumpstart the play conversation in their own community.

WhATA started with a survey about area playgrounds, to which 384 parents responded.

"There was one opinion in the survey: Why every newly-built children playground is just a square with a fence? This standard way to do everything is certainly not the best for our children and their education."

Then they invited architects, designers and landscape architects, but also parents not “in the business” to a workshop.

"We decided to set the following task: make a standard formal playground by using the informal, spontaneous play of children — e.g. stepping on shafts?, climbing on crooked tree branches, balancing on curbes, shoveling fallen leaves, jumping on tree logs, etc
We picked three children playgrounds (neglected) in Sofia which cover three main types:

small playground in the centre of the city (Doktorskata Garden)
playground in a park (Borisovata Garden)
playground in a panel residential complex (between the apartment blocks in Druzhba 2)

The task had two main points which can be summarized as follows:

Make a list of plays you’ve seen children spontaneously do outside the playground (jumping in puddles, walking on curbes, etc)
Following the list, try to create a play-scape (not just a play-ground) on one of the selected sites

Present your ideas by sketches and text."

The designs they produced for three mundane, un-playful play areas in Sofia are innovative and inspiring, and WhATA hopes to realize at least one of the designs for Sofia Architecture Week 2012.

So how about it readers? Why not host your own playground workshop to start talking about better spaces for play wherever you are? Right now, the conversation about play belongs mostly to local government officials and their few chosen providers. You can change that! I'll even come speak at your workshop if I can. Get in touch with your ideas, or what you are already doing to improve the space for play in your community!

Lion's Park Playscape, Rural Studio, Greensboro Alabama, 2011

2012-05-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

photo by Timothy Hursley

I'm just one of many architecture lovers who admire the work of Alabama-based Rural Studio (see a good overview in a recent WSJ piece). It gives students hands-on design and construction experience by building innovative structures made of inexpensive, accessible materials. They devote themselves to Alabama's Hale County, which I first came to know from reading James Agee's Great Depression manifesto Let us Now Praise Famous Men.

A 1996 Rural Studio playground construction has been previously featured on the blog, and I'm pleased to see that they are calling their new space a 'playscape'.

It's located in Greensboro's Lion's Park, which they've been renovating since about 2004, already redesigning the ball fields, adding eye-catching entrance gates, and re-landscaping with concrete and rock pathways that both guide visitors and cover buried utilities. They added toilet facilities powered by collected rainwater and a mobile concession stand, and "designed and constructed an elaborate skateboarding park, complete with half-pipes, jumps, and other obstacles. Funding was donated by the Tony Hawk Foundation, and the end result is probably the most amazing skatepark that has ever been constructed for $25,000."

photo by Timothy Hursley

photo by Timothy Hursely

And now there is the new playscape! It has come in for some criticism for its galvanized steel drum elements (they're recycled mint oil barrels) but Rural Studio did have the good sense to construct a complete shade canopy, unlike the designers of NYC's Brooklyn Bridge playground, where several children were burned on the metal play domes after they were installed in 2010.

2,000 of the donated 55-gallon drums are arranged in a maze that allows kids to chase both in between and on top of the walls. In some places of the canopy, the top and bottom of drums have been removed so that the sky and clouds are visible, and so that the ground plane remains well lit.

I particularly like the 'shouting tubes', and the sensitive berms for groundplay (hooray for playgrounds that aren't completely flat!) both inside and outside the maze.

Look closely at the kids looking down on the shouting tubes: that reminds me so much of being up on top of the haybales, close to the roof of my grandfather's barn. It's a spatial reference that resonates beautifully in this rural landscape.

[see more on the playscape at Architectural Record. Thanks to Cynthia Gentry of the Atlanta Taskforce on Play and the International Play Association, for the tip!]

The Playscape Chronicles of Frode Svane

2012-05-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get asked where the best playgrounds in the world are. Hands down they're in the countries of northern Europe, where long-standing cultural values for being outside and a realistic approach to risk have led to play installations that are truly child-focused.

Frode Svane, teacher and playground expert, hails from Norway and he's documented many of the best European playgrounds in his extensive albums, available on facebook. His photographic chronicles are a huge trove of inspiration for the playscape-maker, of which the ones featured in this post are a small, small selection; I'm particularly inspired at the moment by his idea set for secondary schools (selections above), since play environments for teens continue to be a missed opportunity in play design.

You'll also find loads of ideas for natural playgrounds elements: Frode has been promoting nature play and natural playscapes since way before the current children and nature movement and before I had even heard those terms myself. Sometimes when larger forces take over we lose track of who the real trailblazers were; I consider Frode to be one of them, and his playground chronicles (I don't know anyone else with soo many playground pictures!) are endlessly inspiring.

Frode also hosts study trips of European playgrounds: one each year in Berlin and sometimes also in Scandinavia as well. This year's Berlin trip is June 27-30 (and I've just noticed that the registration deadline was April 12...contact Frode asap for remaining availability)

I dream of taking one of these myself, but alas my uni doesn't consider this a legitimate use of laboratory travel funds....even if you can't take the trip, visit vicariously through Frode Svane's photo chronicles.

Krabbelknoten (A Mathematical Play Sculpture), Erlebnisland Mathematik Dresden, 2011

2012-04-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

From playscapes reader Daniel Lordick of the Geometric Modeling and Visualisation lab at the Dresden University of Technology and the Architectural Representation and Design group at the Berlin Institute of Architecture (great science-art overlaps, there!) comes news of the "Krabbelknoten", a crawl-through knot installed at the 'Math Adventure Land' in Dresden in 2011.

The play-sculpture, which is sized for either children or adults (and was indeed celebrated by full-size modern dancers at its inauguration), is based on the topological investigations of Professor Ulrich Brehm, also at the Dresden University of Technology, who works on what are essentially sophisticated mathematical knots.

"A mathematician’s knot differs from everyday knots in that the ends are joined together so that it cannot be undone. It is a closed curve....a surface with two openings but without any edges."

Which quite naturally makes for an interesting climbing experience in which the child traverses not just any tunnel, but a continuous mathematical function.

The above video is only in German, but non-speakers can still appreciate the extensive mathematical modeling and subsequent engineering that went into making this delightful structure. Further information on the knot's development and mathematical basis, including interesting details on safety and transport considerations, are available in pdf form.

Topology is an absolute goldmine for new playground forms, well beyond the mobius strip (which is the mostly commonly known topological space). I'd love to see these and many more knotboxes on the playground. Thanks Daniel!

Teens on the Playground: Youth Shelters by Superblue

2012-04-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Superblue (they of the Giant Knitting Nancy) have installed an interesting series of youth hang-out spaces in parks in Hertsmere.

As previously mentioned on the blog, youth often want a place to simply talk while engaging in some sporadic play activity and showing off. Not providing these spaces in playgrounds and parks can lead to teens taking over swings or climbing frames intended for much younger children.

These structures do a good job of providing a feeling of enclosure and shelter in a space that is actually quite open and visible. And they all allow for a bit of show-off climbing!

World's First Playground Slide, says the Daily Mail? Not.

2012-04-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

1922

The Daily Mail and BBC have published these fascinating vintage photos (copyright Geoff Robinson) of a slide installed in Wicksteed Park, Kettering, Northamptonshire in 1922. They are wonderful historical images, but are NOT the world's first children's slides.

The journalists and their play historian might want to take a look at the rooftop playground slide in New York in 1900, or the young Tsarevich's slide at Tsarskoe Seloe (1910), or the forty-five foot long waxed wooden slide at the Smith Memorial Playground in Philadelphia which was installed in 1904 (renovated and reopened in 2005), or the c. 1905 Coney Island Slide. They might even perhaps have consulted Playground Technique and Playcraft (original copyright 1909, googlebooks has fulltext of the second, 1913 edition), which gives full instructions for constructing your own, metal (not planks of wood, like at Wicksteed...ooh the splinters!) playground slide.

1900

1910

1904 [source]

1905 [source]

1909, 1913

The notion that Wicksteed made the first playground slide is just one of many inaccuracies in the wikipedia articles related to play and playgrounds. I've been hoping for some time to have a chance to address these, but can't seem to get to it...if you'd like to help save the world from more bad playground history by providing some wiki editing get in touch!

(Thanks to reader Michael for the alert on this!)

And the Winner of the Build-It! Discs is:

2012-04-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

...Tom Bedard of St. Paul Minnesota!

Random.org spit out '2' as the winning number from among the 47 comments, so in this case the early bird gets the discs. Tom, get in touch via email please!

Thanks to everyone for your kind words; they keep me going! One of the most exciting thing about the comments this year is that so many of you aren't just reading the blog, you're actually making your own playscapes--both as individuals and as communities--which is just so great. I'll do my best to keep providing you with all the inspiration I can!

Playscapes Giveaway: Build-It! Discs for Temporary Playgrounds!

2012-04-13T14:30:00.002-07:00

Generally I have some sort of giveaway around the blog's birthday...I'm slow in getting it all together this year (lots of traveling this month) but here it is at last!

Alex Gilliam of Public Workshop creates uniquely engaging opportunities for youth and their communities to shape the design of their cities, in eminently playful ways. With the support of the National Building Museum, Domaform and Cynthia Field, he developed the Build-It! discs to "challenge possibility on playgrounds, vacant lots, in classrooms and your very own backyard.

Build-It! Discs are fabricated in the United States from double-walled cardboard for extra durability and strength, allowing you to build your very best awe-inspiring structures over and over again. They are made from recycled paper and are 100% recyclable!"

They're amazing just for fun, of course, but Public Workshop also uses them to focus on placemaking: exploring, for example, how an underutilized public space might be re-envisioned, and using the highly visible nature of a build-it structure to raise public awareness. They're great for self-building a temporary playscape, or imagining a new permanent playground.

If you are the lucky winner of this giveaway, you'll receive THREE SETS (60 total) of Build-It! Discs, shipping included. Even to international locations, though they may take a while to arrive. If you don't win, you can still order your own--they're $35 (plus shipping) for a set of 20, 12 inch diameter discs--by emailing Alex directly.

TO ENTER, just leave a comment! You can say something nice about playscapes (the blog is powered by good wishes), or make a suggestion for something you'd like to see here or in the playground world in general, or tell me about your favorite playscape ever.

THE WINNER WILL BE RANDOMLY SELECTED FROM COMMENTS (one per userid, please) AT 2400 CST ON MONDAY APRIL 16.

Hope you win!

Alfred Trachsel, Swiss playground hero

2012-04-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

The Netherlands have Aldo van Eyck, but other countries have their playground heroes as well: Lady Allen Hurtwood in England,Theodor Sorenson in Denmark, Empress Frederick in Germany...and Switzerland has Alfred Trachsel, champion of the 'Robi' or Robinson Crusoe playground.

I've been hoping to bring his 1959 book "Creative Playgrounds and Recreation Centers" to you but have been unable to locate his heirs; if you know who they are please do get in touch! For now, there are still some copies available on amazon and etc., and you should get one while you can.

[I also want to take the opportunity to point you to an amazing site devoted to the history of children's playgrounds: architekturfuerkinder by Gabriela Burkhalter. Playscapes brings you as much history as I can, but Gaby's site is devoted solely to the topic, and is comprehensive and well-informed. Don't miss it! ]

Trachsel's approach to the playground is unique for being so utterly inclusive...he called his Robi sites "a playground for all age groups" and he meant it: from babes in arms to the elderly, all gathered together in one play space. Robinson Crusoe playgrounds are sometimes said to be synonymous with adventure playgrounds, but this isn't historically accurate, according to Trachsel and coauthor Alfred Ledermann's own definitions. They saw the classic self-built adventure playground concept as too limited, and wanted to add to it artistic, competitive, and team endeavors as well as social engagement for all ages.

Trachsel's designs were of playground-as-community-centers, specifically embodying the idea of the 'village tree of old', and incorporating permanent buildings for communal activities. This concept continued to influence public park design well into the 1970s, and community buildings alongside playgrounds are still often seen in Europe but less commonly here in the US.

Trachsel included 'building areas' ala the classic adventure playground, but also added hard surfaced areas for ball games, wading pools, villages of playhouses and swings for small children, and areas for theatrical and musical performances. And check out those community chalkboards!

Alfred Trachsel was also the first person (near as I can tell anyway!) to make a play feature out of a natural tree trunk laying on its side in a sandpit, now a common element of the modern natural playscape.

Does your country have a playground hero? I'd love to hear about them...leave me your ideas in the comments!

Rio Tinto Naturescape, Perth, Australia

2012-04-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

The word 'playscape' was invented around 1959 to define a landscape type that was a completely designed space for play, not just the sets of equipment with which the word 'playground' had become definitively associated. It was in keeping with that definition that I chose 'playscapes' as the title for this blog, though since 1959 the word has been used in a variety of ways, to apply to a variety of play spaces.

We're now seeing the rise of a new word--'naturescape'--that further seeks to distinguish spaces for play in which natural features are paramount. Like 'playscape' the word will probably be used in many ways, and without a strict definition, but it is a useful linguistic device, I think, and shows how much exciting innovation is occurring in defining what used to be called the 'playground'. So much that we need new words.

Especially since the new play area at King's Park in Perth Australia has specifically asked us *not* to call it a playground.

"This area is not a playground. It has been designed to retain as much of its natural bush setting as possible. The project brings back a level of challenge, adventure and connection to nature that has been missing from many urban childhoods.

Great care has been taken to provide children with a real ‘bush’ experience in the middle of our city. This is carefully balanced with providing inspiring design and high quality amenities to enhance the visitor experience.

Rio Tinto Naturescape Kings Park covers 60,000 square metres and incorporates a series of unique zones including hidden thickets, a creek, lookouts, a cubby building area, upside-down trees and a wetland. These areas are connected by meandering paths, boardwalks and bridges which offer a feeling of immersion in the bush."

I particularly like the water features, including a massive stone block 'spring' (big enough to wade in!) with small water holes for mud play, and the sensible and humorous approach to playground safety evidenced by the safety signs:

Two Australian kid-focused bloggers visited the Naturescape (here and here), judging it the best play space in Perth! The photos in this post are from their insightful reviews, credit Alec Duncan and Niki Buchan.

I couldn't find information on who the architects/designers for this project were; if you know please tell me so I can credit them.

Thanks to reader Jennifer for submitting this!

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Handcrafted Playgrounds by Paul Friedberg now available through Playscapes!

2012-03-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

Also in the spirit of encouraging you to make your own playscapes, I'm pleased to announce the second title in my effort to make vintage playground classics available again...Paul Friedberg's Handcrafted Playgrounds from 1975. Its best description is contained in the book's own foreward:

"Handcrafted Playgrounds is a sketchbook of designs based on two very simple premises: anyone can build a playground, and the actual process of building it can be as important as the finished product.

It gives the builders (who should certainly include the children for whom it is planned) a chance to shape their environment, to create something to answer their specific needs.

All settings, urban, suburban, and rural, are rich in natural and man-made materials suitable for play. Every child, wherever he or she lives and whatever space is available, can have an exciting playground. All it takes is a little imagination."

Paul (see an online bio at the Cultural Landscape Foundation) is best known in playgrounds for his innovative 1970s installations in New York City, in which he utilized what were then completely new forms for play: massive timber constructs, concrete forts that resembled ancient pyramids, and vest-pocket play spaces in trash-strewn vacant lots before temporary parklets were cool. (See a 2007 article by Deborah Bishop in dwell magazine for photos ~~of Friedberg's 1970s work~~, from which the three photos below are taken.) UPDATE: Paul has let me know that the last two images are actually the work of Richard Dattner...apologies for the misidentification, but don't worry, Dattner's own book Design for Play will be released on Playscapes soon!

Friedberg was one of first to realize the ideas embodied in the new word 'playscape' as discrete from 'playground': a fully three-dimensional landscape space in which purpose-designed components worked together to provide an integrated play experience.

This book reflects that, offering build-it-yourself plans for everything from bridges to benches, spring toys to sprinklers, that can be put together to create a comprehensive play area. Most are made from timber, some from tires or other recycled materials like spools and water tanks.

Handcrafted Playgrounds is currently selling for over $100 on amazon, but now you can get a digital copy through playscapes for just $6!

Please remember that this book is still under copyright protection. Once you've downloaded the file it is yours, just like a physical book is, to print or loan if you wish but not to copy and hand out.

I've purchased publication rights and must also pay royalties; your respect for the time and expense of the original copyright holder as well as my own is very much appreciated. (If you need to convert the pdf to other ebook formats like epub or mobi, try Calibre, which is a free download).

Purchase Handcrafted Playgrounds digital download for $6 USD via Paypal

DIY Playground #2: 'PlayHive' Playhouse by thoughtbarn

2012-03-19T14:39:00.001-07:00

Austin, Texas based design studio thoughtbarn constructed an artful playhouse based on a beehive for a wildfire benefit in their city. Their unique construction, which children can not only play in but also climb around on both inside and out, requires only 2x4s, a drill and a chopsaw (and some patience, but don't all good things?) And now full plans are available for download to Playscapes readers!

Licensed once again by a Creative Commons non-commercial attribution, so do please give credit and don't attempt to make money off this, amazing as it is. To help you on your way, there are additional photos of construction and installation at the thoughtbarn blog and the thoughtbarn flickr page.

Once again, all I ask is that you send me pics of your very own Playhives, and leave thank-yous for the great folks at thoughtbarn. Think of the Playhive combined with the terrain and planting suggestions from space2place....amazing. Go out and make a playscape!

VIEW/DOWNLOAD PLAYHIVE BY THOUGHTBARN

DIY Playground #1: Terrain and Planting for Play by space2place

2012-03-17T18:49:00.001-07:00

If you only have the time or budget to do one thing for play, make a hill.

A simple pile of dirt can become a bike ramp, a fort, a stage, a hiding place, a slide, a launchpad for the imagination. When I was growing up my amazing mother asked the dump truck drivers working on our street to leave a load of dirt in our yard. It was hands down the best play feature ever, enjoyed by not just my brothers and sisters and me but everyone in the neighborhood. There were four swingsets, two slides, and three playhouses on our street too, but the hill was the best.

Sometimes when I recommend hills, though, people are worried about the technical details of the slopes and I never had those answers, but landscape architect Jeff Cutler of space2place in Vancouver, Canada, whose great playgrounds have featured on the blog before does!

Jeff's work is characterized by innovative shaping of the ground to create unique spaces for play accompanied by carefully chosen plantings that enliven the landscape and are themselves full of fun. It's a mystery to me why so many traditional playgrounds look like play deserts....scraped flat and raw and utterly barren. Plants are safe! Don't make a play desert!

space2place is generously providing Playscapes readers with guidelines and suggestions for both play hills and great playground plantings. It's our first DIY playground feature in honor of Aldo's birthday and it's free for you to download, print, and share under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license, which just means you must credit the source if you share it and you can't sell it.

But you can use it to make your own awesome play features all you want! All I ask is that you send me photos of what you do so I can eventually post a mash-up of reader projects, and that you leave nice thank-yous to space2place in the comments.

VIEW/DOWNLOAD TERRAIN AND PLANTING FOR PLAY BY SPACE2PLACE

Watch for DIY play feature #2 on Monday.

Go make a playscape!

Happy Birthday Aldo! Happy Birthday Blog!

2012-03-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

Aldo van Eyck would have been 94 today, March 16, and this blog is 4.

This fortuitous alignment of dates wasn't planned.

I didn't even know who Aldo was when I started posting the few playgrounds I could find that weren't out of a box, weren't 'kfc' playgrounds (in the playground world kfc stands for 'kit, fence and carpet' and has nothing at all to do with Colonel Sanders), that aspired to create space for play, not just to install equipment.

For those of you just joining us (and there are alot of you this year!) I started the blog out of sheer frustration really--tasked with upgrading the small playground at my church, I couldn't find anything well designed and reasonably priced--and the first fifty pages of a google search for 'playground' turned up the same boring sets of equipment. Here green instead of red or with a swirly slide instead of a straight one, but kfc playgrounds all the same, and a local supplier told me the smallest set he could 'recommend' for a church was $25,000. For something that came out of a box.

Good playground design was, to my surprise, really tough to find and I thought I'd post the ones I knew of just in case anyone else was interested. But it was over a year of writing before I had more than 100 views a day, and since my *real* job is in science and I write this blog on nights and weekends (even now I'm in my laboratory, sitting in front of my electron microscope waiting on the ion beam to finish its work) I'm not sure why I kept going.

But I think it was Aldo. I came across the book 'Aldo van Eyck the Playgrounds and the City' documenting the over 700 playgrounds he designed for the city of Amsterdam after World War II and it confirmed the vague feeling I had when I looked around at what passed for a playground--that it just wasn't good enough.

Aldo, as a highly original thinker, artist, and architect had devoted himself, given his absolute best, all he knew of design and craft and placemaking, to these spaces for children in a devastated city. I wanted to see that same attention, care, devotion to the child's place and experience, in contemporary playgrounds.

I still do, and whatever I post here on Playscapes is because I see something of that devotion and care and craft. I'm seeing alot more of it now than I did four years ago! And I hope what you see here will inspire you, my readers, to advocate better design, to demand better playgrounds, to make better playgrounds, yourself.

Most of the playgrounds you see here on Playscapes are large public installations. But many of Aldo van Eyck's installations were actually quite small and I've wanted for some time to fill in the lower end of the scale.

SOOO...to celebrate Aldo's birthday three of Playscapes' very best friends--amazing architects and designers all--have designed small-scale play features, perfectly DIYable, that I'll be making FREE for download in this, Aldo's birthday week!

A taste of what you'll get tomorrow....

Look for the first one tomorrow, and the next on Monday. I'm really excited to bring these to you. Your readership (nearly 4000 a day now!) is a joy, and a surprise, and I'm grateful we've learned so much about playgrounds together. Here's to Aldo.

Things-I-Wish-I-Saw-on-the-Playground: Community Chalkboards

2012-03-09T11:39:00.002-08:00

Charlottesville Virginia based Siteworks won a competition for a First Amendment memorial with their low-tech public forum: a 54 feet long by 7.5 feet high double-sided wall of local slate on which members of the public may express their views, in chalk, on any subject they choose.

"Located directly in front of Charlottesville’s City Hall and beside the city’s amphitheater, the monument consists primarily of a two-sided wall of Buckingham slate, approximately 54 feet long (108’ of writing space) by 7.5 feet high, on which members of the public may express their views, in chalk, on any subject they choose. Permanently inscribed on one segment of the wall is the text of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. On the immediate opposite side is the following quote by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall:

“Above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. To permit the continued building of our politics and culture, and to assure self-fulfillment for each individual, our people are guaranteed the right to express any thought, free from government censorship.”

In addition, the monument’s design includes a podium intended to serve as a contemporary soapbox from which individuals may address both planned and impromptu public gatherings. Inscribed on the face of the podium is the following quote by poet John Milton:

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

With the completion of the monument in April 2006, the entire area outside City Hall became a First Amendment plaza unique among the cities of the United States — the “chalkboard” for written and artistic expression, the platform for verbal expression, and the amphitheater for musical expression.

The monument’s greatest strength lies in the fact it is both a fixed symbol of the right of free expression and a venue for the exercise of that right. Individuals use the chalkboard to express ideas both political and whimsical, to respond to ideas already on the wall, to convey messages to members of city government, and to create temporary works of art."

Text from the thomas jefferson center, images from Siteworks,

See also an in-depth evaluation of the Community Chalkboard, including usage patterns by the Bruner Foundation, which gave it an award for urban excellence in 2006, specifically citing its ability to be replicated by other cities.

And, I think, playgrounds.

Pier 6 Playground, Michael van Valkenburgh and Associates, NYC, 2010

2012-03-07T15:20:00.002-08:00

So some people from the firm of Michael van Valkenburgh have been in my city this week, having been retained to make a new park that will include (though the community meeting was exceedingly vague) some sort of playscape.

MVVA is particularly good, I think, at articulating the space within a playscape's outlines. They divide a large space into a series of smaller play areas--defining them with lush plantings so that they seem like glades in a forest--as well as into valleys and mountains that allow for climbing stairs and sloping pathways. This technique is particularly evident in the overhead shot of New York's Pier 6 playground which opened in 2010.

Notice how all of the playground features are enabled and made better by the shaping of the ground plane and the islands of greenery. They, not the equipment, define the playscape.

[All photos via MVVA]

RFP for Innovative Denver Playground

2012-03-06T11:18:00.002-08:00

I was really excited to hear from the City of Denver's Park and Recreation Department last week with news of their ambitious RFP to re-imagine play at City Park:

"Denver Parks and Recreation (DPR) is challenging currently accepted definitions of play and is looking to re-think play as a unique, multi-faceted experience in an urban, multi-generational space in Denver’s Historic City Park. Highly motivated, qualified and experienced design teams are asked to submit their qualifications and ideas for this challenge. The new space will be unique and will include community context and advocacy."

And they're committed to a $3-5 million dollar project. Playground-makers often get in touch with me and say things like "we'd be more imaginative if cities would let us"....here's your chance. Hooray Denver for being play visionaries...I can't wait to see the results!

Much more info on their reimagine play website: the project launches tomorrow, March 7, with a Public Open House 5:30 to 7:30pm at the Museum of Nature & Science, City Park.

P.S. If your city has an RFP for an out of the ordinary play space, I'd love to promote it. Get in touch.

Rainwater on the Playground - Making Drainage a Play Feature

2012-02-29T13:32:00.002-08:00

Learning through Landscapes also produced an insightful report on the Berlin schoolyards, with many great images, including those above. There's a wealth of inspiration in these schools' tolerance for untidiness, their insistence on sand rather than mulch or safety surfacing, and the 'reprofiling' of school yards to introduce slopes and dips....it's a must-read document.

One aspect of the report is the use of drainage as a play feature. When you do hear about playground drainage it's usually as a problem! But these schoolyards consistently see it as opportunity, channeling the flow with gentle swales and valleys, places kids naturally like to play.

The water course can take various forms, from an artistic mosaic to a boulder-strewn stream bed. You can of course add piped-in water to these features, but I like the way using rainwater introduces a seasonality and changeability to the playscape.

Orange Park, London by Planet Earth Ltd

Dahl Playfield, Seattle WA, by siteworkshop

The ever-helpful London Play have produced a document all about playing with rainwater and sustainable drainage strategies with loads of helpful tips and great site examples to inspire your own rainwater playscape.

The flip side of drainage-as-playfeature is that NOT realizing the attractiveness of rainwater channels can inadvertently cause a problem by drawing children into a space that wasn't designed for them, and carries too much water to be safe. The nice urban drainage scheme of Upton, Northamptonshire (below) is an irresistible playspace and has been adopted as such by children in the community, but this can't be encouraged since it wasn't a planned use. (thanks to reader Amy for this information)

Upton drainage scheme via sustainablecities

Natural Playground Inspiration from Learning through Landscapes

2012-02-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Two lengthy, but excellent videos from SchoolGrounds UK, a part of UK charity Learning through Landscapes, which promotes outdoor learning and play. The first highlights natural play spaces at primary schools in Scotland, and is one of the best overall presentations of natural play principals I've seen anywhere.

The sites feature many classic natural play elements with stumps and stones and landforms, but note particularly the fun the kids are having with the pile of straw mulch...an easy addition to any play space, and the simple barrel and pipe features for water and sand play seen at 1:57 and 4:49 and 12:20. And of course that all-important sandpit, the original playground feature, and still one of the best.

The second is an overview of the amazing playgrounds at schools in Berlin...soak in their innovation, their tolerance for fall heights, hidden spaces, and appropriate risk in general. Note particularly the use of natural drainage for water play (2:37) so that the playground is actually MORE fun in the rain, instead of being rained out! More about Berlin playscapes later this week.

Mirror House Playground Pavilion, MLRP, Copenhagen Denmark, 2011

2012-02-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

If you've read the blog for long you know how much I like mirrors and lenses and optical effects (being, by training and inclination, a microscopist) and wish I saw them more on the playground. Danish firm MLRP have answered my wishes by covering a utilitarian pavilion next to the Tower Playground with funhouse mirrors of polished stainless steel sheets. They turn the previously bland, graffiti-covered structure into a place to explore perspective and reflection, and laugh at oneself!

"Instead of a typical closed gable facade, the mirrored gables creates a sympathetic transition between built and landscape and reflects the surrounding park, playground and activity. Windows and doors are integrated in the wood-clad facade behind facade shutters with varied bent mirror panel effects. At night the shutters are closed making the building anonymous. During the day the building opens up, attracting the children who enjoy seeing themselves transformed in all directions.

With simple means it has succeeded to transform an existing, sad and anonymous building to a unique and respectful installation in the newly renovated park. The roof and facade is clad with heat-modified sustainable wood and the gables and shutters are clad with mirror polished stainless steel. The Mirror House is a flexible space and restrooms, used by kindergarten classes."

[Images by Laura Stamer, via MLRP. See the mirror house project on the MLRP website for more details; and thanks to several readers who submitted this]

A Roof Party Playground by Monstrum

2012-02-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

Its official name is Tårnlegepladsen / The Tower Playground, but I like the idea of a roof party...Denmark's Monstrum has struck again, this time with a playground that takes the notable towers and rooftops of Copenhagen and brings them down to the ground, at kid-scale. Delightful to anyone who has gazed at a tower, way up high, and wondered what it would be like to be up there.

There's the roof of the stock exchange, and the city hall, the round tower, the dome of the Marble Church and the spiral tower of Our Savior's. A brilliant encapsulation of history, urban context, and imagination.

[All photos via Monstrum. See the previous post on Monstrum's playscapes here]