Design & Play: Imagination Needs Places to Thrive

Design & Play Imagination Needs Places to Thrive Design Museum Foundation • Sam Aquillano • Amanda Hawkins

1 • Design & Play

Design & Play Imagination Needs Places to Thrive

Design Museum Foundation

Published by Design Museum Press Š 2017 Design Museum Foundation, Boston, MA Printed by The Print House, Malden, MA on acid free and archival paper All right reserved. No part of this book may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher.

This publication accompanies the exhibition Extraordinary Playscapes, curated by Design Museum Foundation.

BSA Space Boston, MA June 8 - September 5, 2016 Pacific Northwest College of Art Portland, OR October 10 - December 17, 2016 San Francisco Public Library San Francisco, CA April 6 - July 8, 2017 Chicago Public Library Chicago, IL September 21 - December 16, 2017 Written and Edited by: Sam Aquillano and Amanda Hawkins Associate Editors: Jennifer Jackson and Matthew Whiman Designers: Sam Aquillano, Maggie Davis, Hashem Hakeem, Jennifer Jackson, Griffin Kirby, Namhee Nicole Kwak, Edwin Lo, Caitlin Muchow, and Chelsea Small First Edition ISBN: 978-0-9990906-0-2 E-book ISBN: 978-0-9990906-1-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952968 Supported by:

The Malka Fund Zephyr Charitable Foundation

Cover photo courtesy of Playworld

Design & Play Imagination Needs Places to Thrive Sam Aquillano and Amanda Hawkins Foreword by Peter Gray Edited by Jennifer Jackson and Matthew Whiman

Design Museum Press Boston • Portland • San Francisco

Neptune Park, Utah. Photo courtesy of J-U-B Engineers

Contents 07 Foreword 09 Introduction 10

History of Play

20 Science of Play 26 Understanding Barriers to Play 28 Extraordinary Playscapes 51

Creating Playful Cities, Priya Madrecki, KaBOOM!

69 A Playscape for Everyone, G Cody QJ Goldberg, Harper’s Playground

95 The Case for Adventure Play, Katie Shook, MUDLAND

30

Adventure Playground, Berkeley, CA

32

Alexander Kemp Playground, Cambridge, MA

34

The Ambulance Playground, Malawi, Africa

38

Blaxland Riverside Park, Sydney, Australia

40

Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn, NY

42

Brooklyn’s Playground, Pocatello, ID

44

City Museum, St. Louis, MO

46

CLEMYJONTRI, McLean, VA

48

Eager Park Playscape, Baltimore, MD

58

Esplanade Playspace, Boston, MA

60

Geopark, Stavanger, Norway

62

The Globe, Aarhus, Denmark

66

Harper’s Playground, Portland, OR

74

Helen Diller Playground, San Francisco, CA

76

Highland Center Playscape, Crawford Notch, NH

78

Himmelhøj, Copenhagen, Denmark

82

Imagination Playground

86

Infinity Climber, Jersey City, NJ

88

KidZooU, Philadelphia, PA

90

Koret Children’s Quarter, San Francisco, CA

92

The Land, North Wales, UK

98

The Lawn on D, Boston, MA

100 Lions Park Playscape, Greensboro, AL 102 Maggie Daley Park, Chicago, IL 106 Mount Greenwood Park, Chicago, IL 108 Muskrat Ramble, Olympia, WA

119 PlayCubes & the Creative Playground Movement, Missy Benson, Playworld, and Richard Dattner, Dattner Architects

137 Where Design Meets Play, Kate Tooke, Sasaki Associates

163 Play: The Most Powerful Vehicle for Learning, Peter Gray, Boston College

110 Neptune Park, Saratoga Springs, UT 114 Parque Gulliver, Valencia, Spain 116 PlayCubes, Boston, MA 124 Pop-Up Adventure Playgrounds 126 Pulse Park, Ry, Denmark 128 Rainbow Nest, Hokkaido, Japan 130 Schulberg Playground, Wiesbaden, Germany 134 Smale Riverfront Park Playscape, Cincinnati, OH 144 Terra Nova, Richmond, Canada 146 Thomas M. Menino Park, Charlestown, MA 148 Tumbling Bay Playground, London, UK

170 Bibliography and Further Reading 172 Acknowledgments & Special Thanks

150 Vail Nests, Vail, CO 152 Westmoreland Park, Portland, OR 154 Wild Walk, Tupper Lake, NY 158 Woodland Discovery Playground, Memphis, TN

Esplanade Playspace, Boston. Photo courtesy of Ed Wonsek 7 • Design & Play

Foreword

By Peter Gray, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Boston College Childhood is not just preparation for adulthood. It is a significant portion of the whole of a person’s life. It should be a wonderful, joyful, magical, play-filled time.

Children are by nature designed to play. Play is how they exercise their bodies and minds, make friends, develop courage, learn to regulate their emotions, and learn to plan and create. But most important, it is how they have fun.

How lucky we are to be designed by nature to enjoy so much the very category of activity—play—from which we learn the most. How sad it is when children are deprived of play, as so many children are today. Even for adults, life without play is dreary; for children it is extra dreary. We owe it to our children, and to the future of humanity, to bring play—full, free, child-directed play—back to children’s lives. Adult-directed activities, such as youth sports, are not play. Play is where children experience the joys and frustrations of creating their own activities, solving their own problems, and learning the valuable lessons that come from such joys and frustrations.

Next time you have the opportunity to do so, sit back and watch a child or group of children playing. Don’t intervene; do your best to be inconspicuous; just watch.

I’ve spent many hours of research time doing just that, and I am continuously amazed. Children are brilliant in play, in ways that we don’t see at other times. Many years ago, the great Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky wrote that at play a child “behaves above his daily behavior… as though he were a head taller than himself.”

When I was a child, decades ago, adults didn’t have to worry about whether children were getting enough play. They just said, “Get out of the house,” and out we went, where we easily found other kids to play with.

Depending on where we lived, we played in woods, fields, lakes, streams, parks, schoolyards, vacant lots, neighbors’ lawns, streets, and (often best of all) dumps.

All of the outdoors was our playground. We had some chores, and many of us had paper routes or other parttime jobs, but we still had enormous amounts of time for play. We played after school until dinner, and sometimes after dinner until dark; and we often played all day during summers and on weekends. Parents didn’t drive us or usually know where we were; we got to our play places and friends by foot or bicycle.

Today, play does not come so easily. Whether or not the dangers are actually greater now than they were then, people think they are, so children are no longer

allowed such freedom. Those few children whose parents do permit them to range freely often find nobody to play with, or no welcoming place to play. So, not surprisingly, they retreat to their electronic devices where, at least, they can communicate digitally with their friends and play in a virtual world. Sometimes we blame the devices for this, but we should be blaming ourselves. We’ve created a world where children are not welcome and free in public spaces, and then we criticize them for playing so much on computers instead.

The good news is that more and more people are becoming aware of children’s need for play and are trying to do something about it. This beautiful book of designed play spaces is one example of such effort. In today’s world, where children’s play is not welcome everywhere, we need to create special places for it. These places must be designed not just for a few types of play but for all the play that children can imagine. They must be places where children can play for hours, days, and weeks, without exhausting the possibilities. In today’s world, where everyone is so concerned with safety, we must also make such places safe enough, without destroying the thrill and valuable lessons that come from experiencing risk. And, if we want parents to allow children to play long hours without the parents themselves present, then we may need also to include playworkers in those places—people who have been trained to be present and keep things safe enough without intervening and destroying children’s self-directed adventures.

I hope this book will be one prod, among many, toward your own efforts to make the world a more playful place for everyone, but especially for children. • Peter Gray, Ph.D., research professor at Boston College, is author of Free to Learn (Basic Books, 2013) and Psychology (Worth Publishers, a college textbook now in its 7th edition).

He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology.

He did his undergraduate study at Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in biological sciences at Rockefeller University. His current research and writing focus primarily on children’s natural ways of learning and the life-long value of play. His own play includes not only his research and writing, but also long distance bicycling, kayaking, back-woods skiing, and vegetable gardening.

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Introduction

By Sam Aquillano, Executive Director, Design Museum Foundation Running through the woods of suburban-rural Erie, Pennsylvania with my brother Steve, I never once thought that our backyard adventures were teaching me 21st century skills or instilling in me a sense of resilience, risk-taking, creative problem solving, or adaptability.

But that’s exactly what happened. After three years of research and over a year of touring our Extraordinary Playscapes exhibition, working alongside Amanda Hawkins and an amazing group of design and play experts, I can now draw a straight line between my childhood adventures and who I am today.

I’m lucky. My childhood could only be described as idyllic. My mom, Wendy, would open up the back door and we’d run outside, playing all day until the street lights came on.

My brother and I, along with kids of various ages and genders, constantly played unsupervised outside. When we were young, we ran around as superheroes, battling imaginary monsters and giant robots. We created our own stories and our own worlds—and we built them: forts, catapults, rockets, and more. As we got older we tested ourselves and our limits. We traveled for miles on our bikes, played with fire, climbed Buttermilk Falls, and jumped off bridges into Walnut Creek. Play helped forge our imaginations and create lifelong friendships.

I fear that children today are losing these opportunities. So much has changed culturally and economically, whether we’re conscious of it or not, and too often we’re actively limiting access to free, unstructured, challenging play.

When I first read the now famous article in The Atlantic, “The Overprotected Kid,” I was shocked into action. In her piece, author Hanna Rosin says it all in the lede: “A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery— without making it safer.” The solution she proposes: more play and better playgrounds.

A lifetime of play is a lifetime of trying things, an experiment in failing and recovering—skinning your knee and dealing with the pain, getting lost and finding your way home, jumping over a stream and being proud of your physical ability, discovering a problem and solving it just for fun. These are not inconsequential experiences, they are incredibly important to our development.

Dr. Peter Gray, in his excellent contribution to this book, states that play is how young humans practice the skills they need to survive and thrive—basically play is the way kids practice being human. When kids don’t get these experiences, what is the result? They don’t know how to be quite as human, and this leads to negative implications in their physical, mental, social, and creative health.

Play improves health and teaches kids the skills and mindsets that will drive the 21st century. We’re going to need these young innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and creators to develop solutions that make the world a better place for all. Unstructured, imaginative outdoor play is absolutely essential. Therefore, we should be very intentional about shaping our systems, culture, and the built environment. We must design a world full of play, and I hope this book is a guide.

At Design Museum Foundation, our journey to Design & Play began with a community project. A group of local residents in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood was trying to solve a problem: they were living in a play desert, with no access to a local playground.

We’re always looking for problems that design can help solve, so we dove in and pulled together a group of talented researchers and designers to develop an innovative playscape. We started by researching the state of American playgrounds. What we found was largely uninspiring, and we realized that many of the same uncreative play environments, with little room for challenging play, dot our landscape.

Ultimately, Fort Point gained a playground thanks to a new real estate development. Still, we couldn’t let go of that preliminary research. We thought there must be examples of extraordinary playscapes in the United States and around the world that could inspire parents, communities, civic leaders, designers, and more to think differently about outdoor play.

Together with our Content Advisory Committee, a group of play experts, designers, landscape architects, parks department administrators, and others, we developed and launched Extraordinary Playscapes, a national traveling exhibition on design and the importance of outdoor play. This book features all the research and content from the exhibit: 40 case studies of amazing outdoor play environments, a history of outdoor

playscapes, scientific research on the importance of play, and in-depth articles from play experts and designers.

Play is a human right. It’s our collective responsibility to make it a priority in our world. We hope this book inspires the next generation of playscapes as well as a generation of kids to get out and play.

There are so many people and organizations to thank that helped and supported Design Museum Foundation to produce this program and publication. I’d like to personally thank our Board of Directors, Advisory Council members, staff, interns, and volunteers. Thank you to our incredible Content Advisory Committee without whom we could not have curated such a comprehensive publication.

This entire program kicked off with major support from the Boston Society of Architects Foundation, who believed in this vision from the beginning. We’re grateful to our main corporate sponsor, Playworld, a leading manufacturer of innovative play environments.

Their support propelled us to four major exhibition installations across the U.S. in Boston, MA; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; and Chicago, IL. Thank you as well to the parks departments and communities that hosted our exhibition and outdoor play installations.

This project received essential grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts; Sappi Ideas that Matter; Pincus Family Foundation; Zephyr Charitable Foundation; Furthermore, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund; and the Malka Fund. We also received important support from Spurr Design Studio, the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, Anne Lovett and Stephen Woodsum, Gill Fishman, Mahlum Architects, Goric, and Dieter and Karen Reuther.

Finally, I’d like to thank our backers on Kickstarter.

Design & Play is our first publication—over 200 backers believed in this content and vision and pledged their support. I’d especially like to thank MIG, Courtney Hope Cooper, Hapa Collaborative, Jim and Julie Matheson, BSLA, Spurr Design Studio, Proportion Design, Paul Levine, and Jay Beckwith.

Design & Play features stories of communities coming together to create new opportunities for outdoor play—likewise, a strong community came together to make this book possible. Thank you all! •

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History of Play 11 • Design & Play

Photo by Harris & Ewing, Courtesy of Library of Congress

Take a closer look at the documented history of play and playgrounds in the US and Europe from the 1800s to the present day. From organized schoolyard play to the creation of fantastic and adventurous designs, this timeline brings you on a journey through the everchanging nature of play and gives a glimpse into its future.

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13 • Design & Play

1800s-1900s

Birth of the Playground Movement The concept of playgrounds originated in Germany, most notably with Fredrick Froebel, founder of the first kindergarten.

Early playgrounds were connected to schools and emphasized outdoor nature experiences, exploration, and free play. As industrialization and urbanization grew in America, so did concern for public welfare. US kindergartens and nursery schools followed Froebel’s example by adding playground equipment, gardens, and toys for supervised creative activity.

Playgrounds ultimately became a solution to cramped quarters, poor air quality, and social isolation.

1887 The first public playground in the US was built in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. It included swings, slides, a carousel, and a riding cart pulled by goats. The Roman temple carousel at Golden Gate Park was so popular that it traveled to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. It was eventually replaced with another wooden carousel in 1912.

A group of Hungarian children play with their teacher in a sandbox, similar to early sand gardens in Boston.

Photo: © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum & George Pick

Similar to supervised school-play, the first public playgrounds were not designed for free-form play.

Instructors were trained to teach children lessons and organize their activities, which often included equipment lessons, theater productions, and parades.

Merry-go-round at the Golden Gate Children’s Playground in 1951 Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

1837 Friedrich Froebel developed the first kindergarten in Blankenburg, Germany.

1880s Dr. Marie Zakrzewska recommended the supervised playgrounds she saw after visiting Berlin to the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association.

1886 German political leader von Seckendorff placed piles of sand in Berlin’s public parks where children played.

1890s Chicago developed the Special Park Commission (SPC) to create playgrounds in the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods. The SPC also became involved in the effort to create municipal recreation spaces.

1898 Shocked that children were being arrested for playing in the only place they could—the streets—Joseph Lee established his own playground in Boston in the late 1890s. Lee’s public park included a special area for small children, a boys’ play area, individual garden spaces, a sports field, and a building for basketball and club meetings. Staff recreation leaders supervised children at play.

1898-1900 Photo Courtesy of Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Boston allocated up to $200,000 a year for public play spaces. By the end of the century the city had 21 sand gardens and playgrounds.

History of Play • 14

1900s-1920s

Model Playgrounds After sand gardens, model playgrounds are considered the second stage of historical playground development. The term was first used in connection with Jane Addams’ Hull House playground in Chicago, which was established in 1889 and contained sand piles, swings, blocks, a maypole, benches, and handball courts.

As equipment manufacturers entered the scene, the traditional playground was complemented with new types of swinging, climbing, and sliding apparatuses. By 1917, playgrounds appeared in small towns, and schools were setting aside play periods for young children.

1908 Joseph Lee, the “Father of the Playground Movement,” was named the chairman of the PAA’s Committee on State Laws.

1910 The McMillan sisters established a small London children’s hospital that evolved into a safe play environment for children to combat child labor and widespread poverty.

Play structure at Hiawatha Playfield, Seattle, 1912 Photo: Seattle Municipal Archives 29284

1900s As motor vehicles in urban areas increased, children were prohibited from playing in streets. As a solution, playgrounds were developed in vacant lots, closed streets, housing areas, and backyards.

1902 Chicago SPC opened the experimental McKinley Park with ball fields, a swimming lake, and an open-air gymnasium.

1906 The Playground Association of America (PAA) was formed to promote playgrounds to communities, including their overall benefits, construction ideas, layout and design, and optional activities.

1906 Portland, OR joined other cities in embracing the Playground Movement. Portland’s first playground was built in the North Park Blocks between Davis and Flanders Streets in December 1906.

1908 The Massachusetts Playground Act was passed by popular vote, requiring all cities of 10,000 people or more to establish and maintain public playgrounds.

15 • Design & Play

1910 The PAA Committee on Equipment published recommendations for supervised public playgrounds, and manufacturers featured mainly wood, steel, and iron playground equipment in their catalogs.

1920s-1940s

WWII Era Playgrounds President Roosevelt’s 1933 Works Progress Administration provided employment for roughly three million workers, building highways, schools, hospitals, playgrounds, and more. However, the Great Depression and WWII brought the early Playground Movement to a halt and was at the root of an overall decline in play. America’s new priorities of industrial production resulted in what many saw as a degraded public landscape and the irrelevance of parks and playgrounds. During the war years of 19411945, the production of steel playground equipment was at a standstill as metal was instead being diverted to the war effort.

America’s new priorities

1940s

of industrial production resulted in what many saw as a degraded public landscape and the irrelevance of parks and playgrounds.

Boyscouts in Nebraska collect scrap metal for war efforts, 1943.

Photo: Nebraska State Historical Society

1923 Nearly $14 million was expended for recreation by cities and towns in the United States, equivalent to roughly $200 million in 2017.

During WWII, children took periods off from school and used play time to gather scrap metal, piling it at the edge of schoolyards for military truck pick-ups.

1943 1930s

The first junk playground was established in Emdrup, Denmark. Filled with wood, tires, bricks, rope, old furniture, and vehicles, the playground was inexpensive and contained no static parts.

Model for the United Nations Playground, 1952

Photo: 2017 Isamu Noguchi Foundation & Garden Museum, New York/ ARS, New York

Starting in the 1930s, sculptor Isamu Noguchi proposed several models for avant-garde playgrounds, demonstrating the belief that some of the most significant art resides outside of museums. He believed that these playgrounds should work for people while also integrating seamlessly into the environment.

History of Play • 16

1940s-1950s

Adventure & Junk Playgrounds Children have a long history of playing in junk yards, building forts, and creating their own games. The concept of an organized junk playground was first proposed by Danish landscape architect, Carl Theodor Sorensen.

The central idea of these playgrounds was to allow play to come from the imagination of the child. The first of its kind opened in Emdrup, Denmark in 1943. In 1946, Lady Allen of Hurtwood visited Emdrup and brought the idea to London, calling them adventure playgrounds.

1945

Bonfire at Clydesdale Road Adventure Playground, c.1958 Photo: Museum of London Images

1940s-1950s Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck used playgrounds to improve daily life in Amsterdam after the war.

He viewed children as integral members of society and incorporated the needs of young people into his broader quest of enriching city life. Applying his vision to any available open space, Van Eyck transformed anonymous spaces into inviting and vibrant places.

St John’s Wood Adventure Playground, 1965 Photo: Museum of London Images

The central idea of these playgrounds was to allow play to come from the imagination of the child.

Lady Allen of Hurtwood introduced junk playgrounds to the UK in 1945 and coined the term “adventure playground.” She established several adventure playgrounds for children with disabilities, and influenced many accessible playgrounds for all. Today, she is known as one of the most prominent figures in the history of children’s play in the UK.

1950 The first adventure playground in the US was located in Minneapolis, and lasted for just one year. It was followed, however, by several vest-pocket parks, an American idea for using vacant city space for play.

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1950s–1970s

Fantasy & Novelty Playgrounds

1960s Jean Piaget, a Swiss philosopher and psychologist, was one of the first researchers to take children’s play seriously. Through his studies of children in the 1900s, he came to recognize that they learn step-bystep through experience and interaction. He defined play as assimilation, or the child’s efforts to make environmental stimuli match his or her own concepts.

1964

The novelty era of play emerged as an effort to compensate, complement, and substitute for playgrounds with paved surfaces and traditional equipment. Designers created imaginative sculptures, bespoke climbing forms, animal-shaped swings and slides, and equipment designed for specific age groups meant to exercise children’s imaginations. Popular materials included steel, plastic, and wood. Equipment was made lower in height and installed in gravel and bark pits.

Russian psychiatrist Lev Vygotsky argued that children are at their highest level of development when they are at play. Valuing social interaction, he believed that mixed-aged environments were vital to successful play and learning.

Rocket Ship, Boulder, CO

Photo: Brenda Biondo from the book “Once Upon a Playground”

Adventure playground, Islington, August 1963 Photo: Mary Evans Picture Library

1954 A playground design competition sponsored by New York’s Museum of Modern Art inspired a new generation of creative equipment. Fantastic Village, the winning design by Virginia Dortch Dorazio, consisted of seven reinforced concrete panels with cutout abstract designs, ladders, and poles that could be arranged into multiple varieties of five foot hollow cubes.

History of Play • 18

1980s–1990s Designers created imaginative sculptures, such as climbing forms, animal-shaped swings, and equipment

1974 The oldest adventure playground still operating in the United States opened in Huntington Beach, CA.

1976 Richard Dattner designed and patented climbing structures called PlayCubes. The modular system allowed for assembling play structures in a hurry and provided a flexible, low-cost solution for small playgrounds.

designed for specific age groups to exercise children’s imaginations.

1969 Architect M. Paul Friedberg created the first adventurestyle playground in New York City at the Jacob Riis Houses. Friedberg removed chain link fences, asphalt, and standard playground pieces to introduce a total play environment. The site included a tree house, tunnels, blocks, swings, and paths linking various features within a unified space to encourage discovery, experimentation, and cooperation.

PlayCubes, designed by Richard Dattner, Architect Photo: Richard Dattner

1976 The American Adventure Playground Association was formed to support and expand the playground movement.

1979

Riis Plaza, Jacob Riis Houses, New York City, 1965 Photo: ©American Craft Council

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The Berkeley, CA Adventure Playground opened. Here children seven and older participated in the adventure play tradition, focusing on wind, earth, fire, and water, with a range of creative materials for building.

Standardized Playgrounds The standardized playground era began with the design and re-design of manufactured playground equipment and a shifting focus to safety regulations, guidelines, and standards for playgrounds. This period saw the prevalence of hard surfaces typically seen on American playgrounds throughout much of the 20th century. The re-design of equipment centered around the “Four S’s” of playgrounds: swings, slides, seesaws, and superstructures. This movement developed simultaneously with concerns about playground injuries, increasing lawsuits, and the formation of task forces to prepare national standards for playground equipment safety.

2000-Present 1980s-1990s Developmental theories increasingly emerged about playgrounds and childhood learning. The UN proclaimed that 1979 would be the International Year of the Child and urged governments to recognize the importance of play in learning about and adapting to environments.

Modern Playgrounds Building slowly during the late 1990s, the modern focus on play has grown into a fullblown play and playground movement. This is demonstrated by demand for playgrounds to extend beyond standardized equipment.

The word playground is taking on more meanings to include both natural and built environments for people of all ages and abilities. Scholars and professionals are calling for more free and creative playtime as well as playgrounds within walking distance of homes to encourage play, learning, and health for all.

Kolb Elementary School, Dublin, CA Photo: OneDublin.org

1981 The Consumer Product Safety Commission published the Handbook for Public Playgrounds Safety.

is taking on more meanings to include both natural and built environments for people of all ages and abilities.

2000-Present Playgrounds are increasingly being designated as playscapes as they expand to accommodate broader purposes and more diversified play materials and experiences. Designers and architects aim to create total play environments that are integrated into community life and serve as social centers for entire neighborhoods. This diverse age of play includes standardized, natural, electronic, accessible, challenging, and intergenerational designs.

2011

1990s Heightened safety concerns led to the shrinking size and height of new equipment, fewer climbing opportunities, and an increased presence of guardrails installed on playgrounds.

The word playground

Opening day, Terra Nova Playground in Richmond, Canada

Photo: Hapa Collaborative & City of Richmond

The Trust for Public Land released data on city park systems from the US, showing that the 100 largest cities added more than 120 parks in the past year.

2012 The federal government made access to play areas a civil right under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

History of Play • 20

Science of Play 21 • Design & Play

Photo courtesy of ANNABAU

Experts from around the world agree that unstructured play helps children grow into productive and healthy adults prepared for unexpected challenges. Play can happen anywhere, at any time, and is enjoyed by people of all ages—however, we often overlook how play actively impacts physical, social, mental, and creative health.

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Children build nature playscapes in a workshop with artist Mitch Ryerson.

23 • Design & Play

What is play, and why do we need it?

Play involves freedom of choice, personal enjoyment, and a focus on the activity itself rather than its outcomes. It can be an individual or social act, and is often self-directed, fun, exploratory, creative, challenging, and physical. It is a time when we learn to collaborate, problem-solve, use our imaginations, and develop resilience and empathy.

Physical Health When children engage in active play, they strengthen their physical coordination and improve their overall health. They may do this by climbing, kicking, running, balancing, jumping, swimming, biking, dancing, or anything that gets them moving. Many health professionals see a link between the decline in outdoor play and the rise of childhood obesity–often children simply do not have the access to safe, public spaces to play.

Standard playground equipment provides opportunities to improve basic coordination, but playscapes that incorporate nature, climbing structures, and fewer structured boundaries are more successful at increasing physical health during playtime. Playground designs often promote physical health by addressing the upper body, core strength, and aerobic conditioning.

About one third of American children and adolescents ages six to 19 are considered to be overweight or obese, and only one in four adolescents get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity or active play per day. Along with diet and nutrition, physical inactivity is an important contributor to America’s obesity problem. However, the lack of safe outdoor play spaces in many neighborhoods across the U.S. may be contributing to this issue.

In a 2010 study, Singh, Siahpush, and Kogan used data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health to examine the impact of neighborhood socioeconomic conditions and “built environments” on obesity and overweight prevalence among U.S. children and adolescents. Using this extensive individual, household, and neighborhood data from a large, nationally

Only one in four adolescents get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity or active play per day. representative cross-sectional survey, they found that the odds of a child being obese or overweight were 3060% higher among those living in unsafe neighborhoods or in areas characterized by poor housing and lack of outdoor spaces than among children living in better conditions.1 They also found approximately 20-45% higher odds of obesity in children living with fewer neighborhood amenities or those lacking access to sidewalks or walking paths, parks or playgrounds, or recreation or community centers, compared with children who had access to these amenities. This study demonstrates the positive impact outdoor play and community resources can have on children’s physical health.

National Survey of Children’s Health, 2007.

This chart shows estimated obesity rates among 44,101 children ages 10-17 coming from a variety of neighborhoods and socioeconomic conditions, compared to the quality of their built environment in terms of access to public parks and community amenities.

Science of Play • 24

Social Health One of the strongest benefits of play is enhanced social development. Between ages three and five, children gradually transition into cooperative play and begin engaging with others. Through play, kids learn to be flexible, make compromises, accommodate those around them, and work through conflicts. Children also learn and develop important social skills, laying the foundation for their social development. Specific types of play, such as dramatic play, help children experiment with and understand social roles. Through social play, children gradually learn to take each other’s needs into account, and appreciate different values and perspectives. Recent studies show that adaptation and compromise are very useful when facing the unpredictability of adulthood—social play allows children to develop the flexibility needed to adjust to changing circumstances and environments.

In a 2003 study on happiness, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeremy Hunter focused on American public-school students in the 6th-12th grade. More than 800 students from 33 schools in 12 communities across the country wore special wristwatches that were programmed to provide signals at random times between 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. for one week. Whenever the signal went off, participants filled out a questionnaire indicating where they were, what they were doing, and how happy or unhappy they were at the moment. According to the study, children were happiest when participating in social experiences and spending time with friends.2

Mental Health

In 2017, children ages 6-18 averaged about of 6.5 hours of screen time per day. Teenage boys averaged the highest at 8 hours per day.

These findings are consistent with other research indicating that children are, on average, happier in social play with friends than they are in any other situation.

Social play also allows children to control impulses, practice cooperation and communication with peers, and enhance important social and behavioral skills.

Through all of these effects, play promotes social and emotional health.

Free play has declined sharply over the past half-century in the United States and other developed nations.

Recent research suggests that over the same period, anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism have increased in children, adolescents, and young adults. Studies show that lack of free play can lead to reduced sense of personal control, increased narcissism, and a tendency towards materialism.

Play gives children the self-esteem and self-confidence they need to build relationships, understand concepts, and make sense of the world around them. During play, children learn how to make decisions, practice social skills, solve problems, exert self-control, and follow rules—practices that are all closely related to one’s mental health.

17.1 million children in America have diagnosable mental illness such as anxiety.

Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, believes that the generational increases in anxiety and depression are related to a shift from “intrinsic” to “extrinsic” goals among youth.3 Intrinsic goals relate to one’s own personal development, while extrinsic goals focus on material rewards, such as high income, status, and good looks. She argues that this shift is promoted, in part, by the mass marketing of consumer goods through TV and other media, and links this shift in goals with anxiety and depression among youth.

But where does play factor in? Play Psychologist, Peter Gray, Ph.D., believes that these trends mirror the overall decline in play among our youth as well.

Arguing for a causal link between this decline and the rise in psychopathology in children and adolescents, he states that play functions as the major means by which children: 1.) Develop intrinsic interests and competencies; 2.) Learn how to make decisions, solve problems, exert self-control, and follow rules; 3.) Learn to regulate their emotions; 4.) Make friends and learn to get along with others as equals; and 5.) Experience joy.4 A strong case can be made for the correlation between a decrease in play and poor psychological development.

Children are increasingly failing to acquire essential social and emotional skills, but increasing free play can be a positive influence on mental health.

25 • Design & Play

Creative Health New research supports the notion that play and creativity are strongly related. When children use their imaginations while playing, they are more creative, perform better in school, and develop important problem-solving skills.

95% of 3 to 5 year olds test as “creative geniuses.” By the time they reach 20 years of age, that number decreases to 2%.

Creative play is often expressed by using familiar materials in new ways and engaging in imaginative role-playing. Simple things like books, drawing materials, tools, wooden blocks, instruments, and clay can all stimulate a child’s imagination and provide opportunities for improving fine motor skills. The ability to create something from personal feelings and experiences can foster creative health by providing opportunities for new ways of thinking. Playgrounds and play environments encourage exploration, imagination, and learning about the surrounding environment.

In a 2011 study, educational psychologist Kyung Hee Kim analyzed almost 300,000 creative thinking scores from K-12th grade students. She found that creativity among American schoolchildren has been significantly decreasing for the past 25 years, most evidently among K-3rd graders.5 According to Kim, children have grown “less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.” The largest decline is in the measure of elaboration, or the ability to take an idea and expand on it in new and interesting ways.

There has been a considerable amount of research that demonstrates the positive impact play has on our ability to think and work creatively. In a 2010 study, Jones, Taylor, and Sutton investigated whether the experience of unstructured play in a preceding task may influence the creativity of young children in subsequent activity.6 Their study began with two control groups of six to seven year old children; one group was allowed to play with molding dough for 25 minutes while another group followed classroom writing exercises for the same amount of time. All children were then asked to produce a collage using a controlled range of tissue paper materials. Overall, ten judges found that first group produced more colorful and diverse pieces than those partaking in the structured exercise. This study shows how allowing children to have time for unrestricted play can have a significant effect on their creativity.

Sources: 1. Gopal K. Singh et al., “Neighborhood Socioeconomic Conditions, Built Environments, And Childhood Obesity,” Health Affairs, no. 29:3 (2010): 506-7.

2. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeremy Hunter, “Happiness in Everyday Life: The Uses Of Experience Sampling,” Journal of Happiness Studies, no. 4 (2003): 190-4.

3. Jean Twenge., et al., “Birth cohort increases in psychopathology among young Americans, 1938-2007: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of the MMPI,” Clinical Psychology Review, no. 30 (2010): 146.

4. Peter Gray, “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents,” American Journal of Play, no. 3:4 (2011): 443.

5. Kyung Hee Kim, “The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking,” Creativity Research Journal, no. 23:4 (2011): 293.

The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking was developed in 1966 as a test of creativity, involving simple exercises in divergent thinking and other problemsolving skills.

6. Paul Howard-Jones, Jayne Taylor, and Lesley Sutton,“The Effects of Play on the Creativity of Young Children,” Early Childhood Development and Care, no. 172:4 (2002): 323-328.

Science of Play • 26

Understanding

Barriers to Play

Socioeconomic Obstacles Low-income urban families are affected by four major issues regarding play: 1. A reduction in after school programs 2. Lack of play spaces due to limited funding or available safe space 3. More emotional, social, and economic stress 4. Fewer resources available to provide play time for kids

See how KaBOOM! helps communities to work together and bring play to neighborhoods in need–p.51 27 • Design & Play

Time & Scheduled Activities

Safety Standards & Concerns

Many parents choose structured activities and organized sports for their children because they may not have time to supervise free play. There is also a tendency to focus attention on tangible accomplishments and academics instead of unstructured play.

Due to both safety requirements and social stigma, play is not considered safe in many communities, unless children are under adult supervision. The lack of safe play outdoors contributes to more children partaking in sedentary, indoor activities.

Concerns about cost and liability also drive many decisions related to American playground design that sometimes restrict unstructured play.

See how CEBRA designed a multi-use playscape to encourage free, unstructured, and athletic play for people of all ages–p.126

See how Tres Birds Workshop designed creative solutions for safe play at the Vail Nests in Colorado–p.150

Accessibility & Location

Too Much Screen Time

Decline of Recess

Many times children do not have access to playgrounds in their neighborhood. In addition, playgrounds are not always fully accessible and inclusive to children with differing abilities, limiting their access to play in public spaces.

When children watch too much television, play often mimics what is seen on screen, becoming less free-form and imaginative. The increased use of video games, television and mobile apps also limits children’s valuable time for creative play outdoors.

A 2009 study published in the Journal of Pediatrics found that 30% of children surveyed had little to no recess in their school day. Furthermore, a report by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that schools with high minority and poverty rates in urban settings are more likely to reduce recess time compared to those in more affluent neighborhoods. 28% of schools with students at the highest poverty rates had no recess at all.

See how the designers at CLEMYJONTRI Park created an accessible playscape for kids of all abilities–p.46

See how the Alexander Kemp Playground incorporates loose parts for creative play–p.32

See how Imagination Playground transforms any area into a playscape–p.82 28

Extraordinary Playscapes Playground Design Case Studies 28 • Design & Play

Photo courtesy of JMD Design

Working directly with the creators of extraordinary playscapes from around the world, we’ve curated a collection of modern playground design with examples from 1979 to today. Considering the creativity of each design, we examined unique architecture, thoughtful layouts, bespoke play equipment, effects on childhood development, impactful stories, and the importance of accessibility.

From towering treetop paths to hand-knit crochet playgrounds, explore over 40 international playscapes highlighting how design can engage diverse communities and translate play objectives into stateof-the-art and meaningful environments. We hope these playgrounds bring you joy, knowledge about the design process, and new ideas for the future of play.

29

Adventure Playground Berkeley, CA City of Berkeley, American Adventure Playground Association 30 • Design & Play

1979

2017

1979

The Adventure Playground in Berkeley is a unique facility that encourages children to play and build creatively. The space is filled with donated materials such as furniture, wood, boats, scrap metal, loose parts, and tools—supplies kids can use to design, construct, and explore. By providing low-risk activities in a safe environment, the site creates opportunities for children to gain self-confidence, learn cooperation, and overcome new physical challenges.

After launching with a workshop in 1978, the American Adventure Playground Association worked with the City of Berkeley to make the playground a reality.

The project began with the help of a local telephone company that installed poles in a designated fencedin lot. This infrastructure provided support for two climbing nets, a zip-line, crow’s nest, ladder swing wall, and rope swing.

The yard is divided into four zones monitored by specially trained play leaders. Zone A hosts a large fire pit, the “rain forest” water area, a crow’s nest and tower, rope swings, and ever-changing forts. Zone B has double-wide gates that provide vehicle access, allowing for new supply deliveries and helping to make upkeep easier. The hidden play areas and 100-foot zip-line in Zone C provide opportunities to build and explore. In Zone D, visitors can use tools like hammers, nails, saws, clamps, and paint for small crafting and building projects. The playground’s design constantly changes and evolves with each visitor, and even adults are encouraged to participate, hand out tools, and help keep the space safe and tidy. The resulting playground showcases how to reuse, rebuild, and repurpose materials, and gives children the ability to successfully experiment while learning new skills.

To get a tool, children have to collect trash, nails, or sharp splinters. This helps keep the playground safe and clean in addition to creating a sense of investment and community.

Photos and drawing courtesy of City of Berkeley & American Adventure Playground Association

Extraordinary Playscapes • 31

Alexander Kemp Playground Cambridge, MA • City of Cambridge and Robert Steck, Architect

32 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2009

The Alexander Kemp Playground is a non-traditional play space built with flexible, challenging, and responsive materials. Specialized zones include a sand and water play station, and natural and interactive elements provide a variety of movement opportunities that facilitate both self-initiated and cooperative play within the community hub.

Located at Cambridge Common—one of the oldest public open spaces in America—the playground was redesigned and renovated in 2009 with a budget of $500,000. By assessing the benefits of open-ended outdoor play on children’s health, development, learning, and overall well-being, the City of Cambridge’s Healthy Parks and Playgrounds Task Force recommended a design that fosters exploration, imagination, socialization, movement, risk-taking, and learning about the outdoor environment.

The playground includes a series of focused spaces, linked together by a continuous interior path. Hills, valleys, sand, wooden branches, stumps, living plant material, and loose wooden blocks for building create a diverse landscape that encourages exploration and creative play. Wooden structures were designed and fabricated specifically for the playground from sustainably harvested black locust. A 200+ yearold felled tree from Cambridge was also preserved and repurposed for the playground. All of the wood structures are naturally decay-resistant. The site incorporates slides embedded into hills, water tables, and a sand building area. Hand-crafted wooden benches and tables provide comfortable places for parents and caregivers to congregate and take active roles in their children’s play—an important element in considering the playground as part of Cambridge Common.

Photos and drawing courtesy of the City of Cambridge

Extraordinary Playscapes • 33

The Ambulance Playground Malawi, Africa • Super Local

34 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2012

In co-operation with Sakaramenta, a social business based in the south of Malawi, design studio Super Local created a complete playground using recycled materials.

In addition to equipment made from old car parts, the centerpiece consists of a used ambulance vehicle found in a junk yard. Redesigned and repainted, it forms a clubhouse that stimulates children’s imaginations.

Located in an old parking lot at the Beit CURE hospital, which specializes in orthopedic treatments for children, the playground provides an inspiring environment for young patients with limited mobility who have little opportunity for outdoor play.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 35

36 • Design & Play

Malawi is one of Africa’s least-developed countries, and facilities in its rural areas are very limited. Projects like the Ambulance Playground show that good design holds endless possibilities. The team’s focus was simple: design an inspiring, strong, and sustainable playground created with the use of local materials. To learn what materials were available and useful for the production of playground equipment, Super Local researched scrapyards and old-metal markets. These places provided a guaranteed supply of certain parts such as tires, springs, and axles. The former ambulance— modified to include a fireman pole-slide, climbing rack, vuvuzela, slide, and a double steering wheel in the cabin—became a favorite with kids.

Photos and drawing courtesy of Super Local

Accessibility was also an important design component.

With the goal of being completely inclusive, the playground promotes interaction between children at the hospital and those living in the neighborhood. Since disability is sometimes poorly understood in Africa, a strong stigma is attached to children who appear to be “different.” This inventive new clubhouse was designed to break down social barriers and nurture tolerance.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 37

Blaxland Riverside Park Sydney Olympic Park, Australia • JMD Design Photo Courtesy of Brett Boardman

38 • Design & Play

Courtesy of Anton James, JMD Design

1979

2017 2012

“The design aimed to offer surprise.

It is not a space that dictates to the child what to think, which way to go next, what to learn.”

- Anton James, JMD Design

The primary program for Blaxland Riverside Park’s new play space is gross motor play. Colorful mounds are sculpted at a 1:2 slope and reach up to three meters high, creating intriguing spatial and visual qualities that invite running, climbing, jumping, and free play. The site’s design reflects the Sydney Olympic Parkland Authority’s response to the region’s growing demand for recreational facilities, and its colorful landscape creates a constant flow of activity for visitors of all ages and capabilities.

The $6.9 million park is built on a remediated landfill site that was initially developed for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Landscape architects at JMD Design conflated cones, cuts, and terraces—the existing dominant earth forms—to create a distinctive project including customdesigned items built into and around the landscape. The site posed significant technical challenges and required a flexible design. The play space itself is supported by accessible ancillary infrastructure—the water feature required a flexible interface to ensure the hundreds of pipes feeding the water jets were not at risk of rupture in the event of ground settlement and the base of the tree house is adjustable to allow for the rectification of any lean resulting from land subsidence.

The Parkland Authority encouraged investigating and designing custom items, including the giant swing, tree house, and water play plaza with choreographed jets.

Tunnel slides, a sand pit, climbing walls, and nets provide more opportunities for active, creative, and challenging play. The design is naturally inclusive, and a number of the play pods and equipment types are universally accessible. The most active elements are located in the east end while passive play spots including the sand and water areas are located to the west. This layout offers challenges and opportunities for learning that focus on a child’s capability rather than age.

Photos courtesy of JMD Design

Photo courtesy of Brett Boardman

Extraordinary Playscapes • 39

Brooklyn Bridge Park Brooklyn, NY • Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

40 • Design & Play

1979

2017

Photos and drawing courtesy of MVVA

2010

Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6 celebrates play and encourages discovery as a community-building activity at the playground. The space is designed to free children from the caged-in feeling often created by metal fences in urban playgrounds. The setting, rather than the equipment, allows kids to explore and engage with earth and plants in a continual process of discovery. There’s no correct method of play or prescribed narrative path; creativity becomes the challenge among the unpredictable arrangement of vegetative and constructed material.

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates purposefully avoided bright, synthetic materials for the play equipment, opting instead for neutral materials that allow the richly planted landscape to dominate and guide play. The site integrates elements of play throughout a landscape of small hills, climbing surfaces, natural textures, and native plants. The upland area is divided into four zones: The Waterlab, which is home to spray jets, splash areas, and an Archimedes Screw that teaches visitors about the physics and dynamics of water; Slide Mountain, designed for children ages five to 12, featuring several long and fast slides and a climbing dome; Swing Valley, where kids can swing high in the air; and Sand Village, which incorporates play structures, a toddlersized train, sand platforms, and riding animals in New York City’s largest sandbox.

Materials like wood, stone, and sand add to the textural language of landscape and engage the sense of temporary escape from the city. As in rural environments, a certain element of risk is accepted in the playground, enabling children of all ages to venture into the unknown and learn to build trust with one another.

Photo courtesy of Lexi Van Valkenburgh

Photo courtesy of Lexi Van Valkenburgh

Extraordinary Playscapes • 41

Brooklyn’s Playground Pocatello, ID • Leathers & Associates

42 • Design & Play

SCHOOL AGED AREA

THIS AREA IS DESIGNED FOR KIDS AGES 5-12 ADULT SUPERVISION IS RECOMMENDED

1979

2017

3 POURED 7,000 RUBBER SF 7' FALL 12 HEIGHT BALANCE BEAM ON CHAINS

PARALLEL LADDER

2011

HIGH MONKEY BARS

LOW MONKEY BARS BENCH 3 POURED RUBBER 12

1 FENCE 48

SHAKY BRIDGE

BENCH

3 POURED RUBBER 12 STEP STEP FIREPOLELADDER SOUND LADDER WALL

TOT LOT

BENCH

OLD WEST MAZE

CRAWL TUNNEL

ARCHED BRIDGE

ACTIVITY PANELS

VERTICAL LADDER BALL PASS

VERTICAL LADDER 7,000 SF 7' FALL SPINNER HEIGHT BOUNCY BENCH BRIDGE

NEW TREE

BENCH

COIL CLIMBER

STEP LADDER PLANET TOWER PHONE

NEW TREE

1,100 SF 5' FALL HEIGHT WIDE SLIDE

ALPINE THUNDER SLIDE ROPE WALL

ROCKET

ACTIVITY PANEL

Brooklyn’s Playground is a fully-accessible environment where children of all abilities can play together—shoulder to shoulder—with no barriers. Over 3,000 volunteers assisted in fundraising and construction, demonstrating the importance of all-inclusive play spaces and serving as a testament to what can be achieved with community effort. Pocatello is an old railroad town bordering the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Paying homage to the community’s history and culture, the playground’s design incorporates a train, tipi, historical village facades, and a log home for play.

NEW TREE SNAKE SLIDE

GRADUATED BALANCE BEAM

BALANCE BEAM

ROCK WALL

TRAIN PHONE TWISTY TREE TOT LOT 3 POURED RUBBER SF 7' FALL 1,100 SF 5'12FALL HOUSE 7,000 SLIDE SWINGINGHEIGHT TIC TAC TOE HEIGHT DECK BENCH

TEE PEE

THIS AREA IS DESIGNED FOR KIDS AGES 0-2.

ADULT SUPERVISION IS REQUIRED 1 FENCE 48 NEW TREE

3,500 SF 6' FALL HEIGHT

STAGE LOG CABIN PLAYHOUSE

BENCH ACTIVITY PANEL DBL SIDED CRADLE CLIMBER HIGH RING BRIDGE

LOW RING BRIDGE

BUBBLE WALL

ACTIVITY PANEL CHIN UP BAR

LOG ROLL

ACCESSIBLE PARALLEL BARS 7,000 SF 7' FALL HEIGHT

3,200 SF 7' FALL HEIGHT SWINGS TIRE SWING 2,250 SF 8' FALL HEIGHT

SPIN CUP ZZXX0065

BOUNCY BRIDGE CRAWL TUNNEL

PHONE

TEXTURE PIRATE ROCKING WALL 7,000 SF 7' FALL SHIP PLATFORM COVERED HEIGHT SEATING

CHIN UP 3 WHEEL BAR SPINNER

TOT TUBE SLIDE ACTIVITY PANEL

BARN

ACTIVITY BENCH PANEL DBL SIDED 3,500 SF 6' FALL HEIGHT

TRACTOR ENTRY COURT (BY OTHERS) 3 POURED RUBBER 12 3,500 SF 6' FALL HEIGHT MUSTANG SPRING TOY

DONOR WALL

3 POURED RUBBER 12

POTATO STEPPERS

PRESCHOOL

SPIN CUP ZZXX0065 PRE SCHOOL MUSIC STATION

DOUBLE SLIDE

3 POURED RUBBER 12 PONY SPRING TOY

1 FENCE 48

NEW TREE

PRE-SCHOOL

THIS AREA IS DESIGNED FOR KIDS AGES 2-5.

ADULT SUPERVISION IS REQUIRED

BENCH

METAL SWINGS 1 FENCE 48

BENCH

HARD SURFACE (BY OTHERS)

HARD SURFACE (BY OTHERS)

THERAPEUTIC METAL TOT SWING

MOSAIC WALL BENCH NEW TREE

NEW TREES

NEW SIDEWALK (BY OTHERS)

3,500 SF 6' FALL HEIGHT NOTE: * ACCESSIBLE PATH TO ENTRANCE BY OTHERS. * 6X6'S, 4X4'S AND FRAMING ARE STRUCTURAL PLASTIC. *BLOCK OFF BELOW RAMPS & LANDINGS UP TO 30". *BALUSTERS ALONG RAMPS THAT ARE 30" OR MORE ABOVE FINISH GRADE. ALL TREES ARE NEW.

The project was inspired by Jonny and Melissa Fisher’s daughter, Brooklyn, who has spina bifida. They wanted a place for children to learn, play, and grow together, regardless of their abilities. The project officially kicked off in February 2011; the Fishers spearheaded a volunteer steering committee that successfully raised $580,000 over eight months. The project’s budget totaled $560,000, which left them with a $20,000 maintenance fund for long term care.

Playground designers Leathers & Associates began the process with site visits, committee meetings for design feedback, and brainstorming sessions with local children. The resulting playground includes a yellow brick road that leads visitors to the entrance, a make-believe general store, clock tower, tree house, musical elements, and a range of cheery colors. One of the main design goals was to maximize accessibility and all-inclusive play elements. Ramps throughout the playground allow access to elevated spaces, and accessible play elements are provided at each level. The main structure utilizes recycled building materials along with poured-in-place rubber surfacing. Numerous manufactured components including slides, swings, and nets are incorporated as well.

Photos and drawing courtesy of Leathers & Associates

Extraordinary Playscapes • 43

City Museum St. Louis, MO • Bob Cassilly and City Museum

44 • Design & Play

“It has always worked because we’ve built the things we find fun, and we’re lucky that people like to do what we like to do.”

- Rick Erwin, Director of City Museum

1979

2017 1997

Housed in a former St. Louis shoe factory, City Museum is an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, and architectural wonder created from unique, found objects. Architectural and industrial materials are repurposed to create tree houses, mosaics, statues, ramps, rope swings, and other areas for endless exploration. The indoor and outdoor play areas are created organically, building off of a nostalgia for play in the 1950’s, which was less prescriptive and, instead, fueled by physical exploration and curiosity.

City Museum is constantly growing and changing.

Architectural and industrial objects are repurposed to create tree houses, giant Slinkys, mosaics, statues, ramps, rope swings, and the Enchanted Caves running through the center of the museum. MonstroCity, the museum’s primary outdoor space, has evolved over 15 years, and expands as new materials become available, like when an intricate, six-story-high web of slides was built around and on top of a concrete-reinforced tree, a century-old log cabin, and two ball pits. Two Cessna airplane skeletons, a treehouse, a giant bell, and spiral staircases offer even more opportunities to explore.

The museum’s team of artists and decision-makers is compact and imaginative, sharing a united vision that honors founder Bob Cassilly’s aesthetic. Since they are both the designers and builders, they move quickly.

Creativity, experience, and technique combine to create impressive and safe environments. “When we get an idea here, we start building it that afternoon,” Cassilly once said. This immediate, hands-on style means there are few models; sketches are informal, as are design meetings and project updates. The museum is privately owned and self-supporting, expanding opportunities for freedom of development and implementation.

Photos courtesy of City Museum

Materials themselves often influence the design at City Museum. Its repurposed building offered inspiration when the ten-story atrium shaft of spiral chutes used to transport merchandise was repurposed for a second life as slides.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 45

CLEMYJONTRI McLean, VA • G.E. Fielder & Associates, Chartered

46 • Design & Play

Photo courtesy of Dolphin Technolgies

1979

2017 2006

CLEMYJONTRI was created to blur the distinction between children of differing abilities during play.

Surpassing ADA requirements, the space’s design solves environmental and recreational barriers that often hinder many children from taking full advantage of outdoor play and stimulates activity and creativity for all through its vibrant use of colors.

In 2000, Fairfax County received an 18.5 acre donation under the stipulation that part of the land be a used for a playground accomodating children of all abilities.

Landscape architects GE Fielder & Associates saw this as an opportunity to elevate the standard for accessible playground and to protect and enhance the environment. After preparing a site analysis, a design emerged consisting of “themed rooms” centered around an accessible carousel. Each room allows for different types of learning, giving children the opportunity to grow and develop skills that build confidence.

The playground’s Rainbow Room incorporates the motion of swinging; the Schoolhouse centers on memory development and repetitive learning from color; the Movin’ and Groovin’ area includes a wheelchair-accessible helicopter and drag strip for group play and racing; and the Fitness and Fun room is devoted to physical strenghtening and balance. The two-acre space includes rest and quiet play areas and holds over 100 pieces of equipment, 20 of which were original innovations designed for the park. In addition to in-kind donations of over $1m in labor and materials, $650,000 was raised for the playground. Through intentional design focused on inclusive play and learning, CLEMYJONTRI creates active, exciting spaces that engage the minds and bodies of all visitors.

Photo courtesy of Dolphin Technolgies

CLEMYJONTRI features directional signage in braille, English, and American Sign Language.

Photos courtesy of G.E. Fielder & Associates

Photo courtesy of Bikrant Man Shrestha, Namlo Photography Photos courtesy of G.E Fielder & Associates

Extraordinary Playscapes • 47

Eager Park Playscape Baltimore, MD • KaBOOM!

48 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2017

In June 2017, over 200 volunteers from the East Baltimore community came together to build a unique, innovative, state-of-the-art play space in Eager Park.

As with all KaBOOM! playgrounds, the playspace was developed with direct input from the community; kids shared drawings and ideas, and parents and community members provided design feedback. After the team selected equipment, finalized the design, and received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, The UPS Foundation, and the Rouse Company Foundation, hundreds of volunteers helped bring the playground to life in just six hours.

The playground build, led by KaBOOM!, was part of a larger revitalization effort to make the park a central location for families in the greater East Baltimore area to congregate, play, and learn. The playground features Playworld’s PlayForm7 design. More than just a standard playground, its unique sculptural form inspires creativity, problem-solving, and peer interaction.

This type of cutting-edge playground design is not often found in low-income and underserved communities, but KaBOOM! recognizes that these are the areas most often in need of spaces for play. KaBOOM! believes that all kids deserve access to innovative play spaces, regardless of their zip code, and works to bring communities together in order to ensure kids are well-served. Planned, built, and maintained by and for the community, this playground is a great example of what can happen when people of all backgrounds come together in common purpose to make a positive difference where they live. Hundreds of volunteers— including the Mayor, City Councilman and James Siegal, the CEO for KaBOOM!—rolled up their sleeves together to build this playground that will serve generations of kids to come.

Photos courtesy of KaBOOM!

Extraordinary Playscapes • 49

Families play on iPlay MIAMI Streets, a public project made possible by the Play Everywhere Challenge.

50 • Design & Play

Creating Playful Cities When Kids Play, We All Win

By Priya Madrecki, Senior Manager, KaBOOM! Photos courtesy of KaBOOM!

22 years ago, KaBOOM! founder Darell Hammond read an article in the Washington Post about two siblings in Washington, D.C., a two- and four-year-old. It was the middle of a summer heat wave, and while searching for a place to play, they found an abandoned car, climbed in, and got trapped inside. Tragically, they suffocated in the car and died.

The Post writer, trying to make sense of this tragedy, went searching for safe places to play in the siblings’ neighborhood and could not find a single playground within a three mile radius of their home.

Nothing was happening to improve the neighborhood for the kids and families who lived there. Hammond was motivated to act—not to create an organization—but to solve a specific problem working in partnership with the community to meet the needs of its kids. Thus, the very first KaBOOM! playground was born.

KaBOOM! is a national non-profit dedicated to giving all kids the childhood they deserve through great, safe places to play. Over the past 22 years, we’ve built over 16,700 playgrounds, serving 8.5 million kids, with help from more than 1 million volunteers. We bring play to those who need it most: kids living in underserved communities.

We believe that the well-being of our communities starts with the well-being of our kids, and play is critical to their ability to thrive. That’s why our partners, city leaders, and volunteers come together every day to create play spaces for kids in communities from Charlotte to Chicago and Baltimore to Bakersfield. Each is an oasis where kids feel valued and loved, and where their potential is supported, nurtured, and celebrated.

Play Everywhere Across the U.S.–and especially in cities–far too many kids miss out on the chance to play because of where they live, where they come from, or how much their families earn. For the 15 million kids living in poverty– that’s one out of five–play is too hard to come by.

Despite a collective understanding that play is essential to healthy development, kids are not getting

adequate playtime each day and are playing far less than in previous generations. While screen time and other distractions are part of the problem, there are other factors that prevent kids from playing on a daily basis.

In 2014, KaBOOM! partnered with ideas42, a behavioral research firm, to understand the barriers that prevent kids from playing and how communities can overcome these challenges. We discovered several interesting factors that are limiting kids’ play today.

Unlike eating, there is no natural point in the day when parents or caregivers are faced with the choice of whether to play or not play; rather, play can easily be completely forgotten. There are also many logistical hassles that become roadblocks to play. Questions about having the right clothes, knowing whether there’s a

future of kids in cities. Over 80% of Americans live in urban areas and the percentage of kids in these areas is slightly higher. The many decisions that impact play happen on a local level, whether that’s investment in infrastructure, policy, or programming. Cities are becoming hotbeds of innovation on a range of issues, and we advocate kids’ health and well-being should be included in the overall equation.

Cities should embrace playability to attract, retain, and support young families. Defined simply as the extent to which cities make it easy for kids to play, playability incorporates three main components: scale, ease, and equity. In essence, we must transform everyday spaces into PLAYces by fostering play everywhere.

Cities should embrace playability to attract, retain, and support young families. bathroom at the playground, and having snacks handy can make a trip to the playground seem daunting.

Play must be integrated into the daily routines of kids. This is particularly important when thinking about creating equitable communities. Low-income kids spend 25% more time doing chores and running errands with parents than their affluent peers—this means less time for play.

While playgrounds provide great oases for play in urban communities, there are vast spaces between playgrounds. Play should be easily accessible at many points throughout the day, including in places where one might least expect it, such as laundromats, grocery stores, bus stops, and sidewalks–places where kids are already spending time, but often in frustrating or disengaged scenarios.

Cities can be at the forefront, making changes by rethinking and redesigning public spaces with kids in mind. Our nation’s future is inextricably linked to the

The Play Everywhere Challenge In an effort to address the need for increased playability, KaBOOM! launched the Play Everywhere Challenge in 2016, a $1 million competition that awarded scalable, replicable ideas for play in everyday spaces.

Formed in conjunction with five collaborators–the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Endowment for Arts, and Playworld–the Play Everywhere Challenge provided funds to seed ideas in cities for play opportunities and create unique installations. This innovative public-private partnership demonstrated how non-profits, government entities, and for-profit corporations can work collaboratively to improve the future of kids across the U.S.

We launched the challenge with the belief that PLAYces are wondrous, challenging, convenient, inviting, shared, and unifying. To our delight, we 51

BUSt! Boredom received over 1,000 unique ideas that a group of 28 experts from across the country reviewed and judged, narrowing the field to 50 grantees charged with developing and implementing their ideas. Here are just a few of the creative solutions our grantees developed:

BUSt! Boredom • Lexington, KY Project Type: Public Art, Public Transit and Transportation, Streets and Sidewalks The Lexington Downtown Development Authority is part of an ambitious public-private partnership called the “Town Branch Commons,” which seeks to revitalize parts of downtown with a new trail system.

The Lexington Transit Center is directly in this path, and through a “Public Space, Public Life” study, they found that the space is heavily used and was in much need of improvement. It featured blank walls and an uninviting space that many residents, in response to a survey, stated would be much more enjoyable with kid and family-friendly installations.

Their goals for the project were to improve the public transit experience; provide opportunities for safe, imaginative play; encourage conversation and interaction among kids and caregivers; and demonstrate the value of kid-friendly design.

52 • Design & Play

iPlay MIAMI

BUSt! Boredom reprogramed Lexington’s main bus station with visual art installations and creative programming for children and caregivers waiting for a ride. The project encouraged wonder, conversation, pride, and a sense of belonging for the almost 5,000 predominantly low-income individuals who pass through this space every day. BUSt! Boredom engaged people at different levels through interactive wall and ceiling installations, inspiring imagination and promoting interaction while people wait for transit.

Hannah O’Leary, a Project Analyst with the Lexington Downtown Development Authority says, “This project served as a demonstration of the value of kid-friendly design and opened stakeholders’ minds to the opportunities available for improving the public transit experience in Lexington for low income families.”

iPlay MIAMI Streets • Miami, FL Project Type: Public Art, Streets and Sidewalks The iPlay MIAMI Streets project made spaces in lowincome, urban communities throughout the City of Miami accessible for kids and families. To implement, the City Manager designated dead-end streets as play spaces for kids, closing vehicular traffic in those areas.

The project encouraged exploration and imagination

while kids and adults of all ages and abilities were challenged to play in new ways.

Miriam Flores, a creator of the project, explains, “The five locations which we picked for our play streets were previously abandoned, full of trash, and used for illicit activities. The areas were barren of any playability components for neighborhood children. In transforming the spaces into passive and active play areas for the community, we were able to enhance the quality of life of the immediate neighbors and that of the greater area. Before and after the installation, we visited the areas to ensure that the community would welcome the idea by engaging the City Administrators within each neighborhood. The ribbon-cutting events featured children from nearby schools and the community. They came to play alongside City staff and elected officials.”

And Yariel Diaz from the City of Miami Neighborhood Enhancement Team added, “In District 1, Commissioner Wifredo “Willy” Gort was approached by kids to figure out how to play hopscotch because the kids had never seen it before and did not know the rules.

The Commissioner explained it to the children and then played with them. Commissioner Willy Gort is in his 70s! It was a great cross-generational activity. Some folks come to the sites to play and just enjoy the space.

Others come to eat lunch and spend time with each other. To this day, a variety of visitors still come as we evaluate whether to keep the play streets or not, as this was meant to be a temporary space.”

Moveable Fest • Nashville, TN Project Type: Moveable Play, Plazas and Parklets, Streets and Sidewalks In 2014, Nashville adopted a parklet program to allow organizations and businesses to lease a metered parking space and install a semi-permanent parklet for pedestrian use. The Moveable Fest is a mobile parklet installation along Nashville’s high-pedestrian-traffic streets. A converted shipping container provides the framework and structure for the parklet, outfitting the interior as a play area for all ages featuring a small climbing area, cargo net, stairs to a second level, and a circular slide from the roof to lower level.

Within close proximity to many low-income neighborhoods, this moveable parklet adds a much needed play space to downtown and urban areas.

Semi-permanent parklet installations can help spur the reimagining of public space, encouraging a variety of activities in a location normally dedicated to parked vehicles. The Moveable Fest is helping to reclaim Nashville’s parking areas for pedestrians.

Moveable Fest

Rail Trail Symphony • Charlotte, NC Project Type: Public Art, Public Transportation, Streets and Sidewalks

Transit

and

The rail corridor in Charlotte, North Carolina, has historically been viewed as a barrier between neighborhoods, but is now being re-envisioned as a community “zipper”—a high-quality public place that connects neighborhoods rather than separates them.

This vision hinges on the Charlotte Rail Trail, a 4.5 mile path that runs along the light rail line through 10+ diverse neighborhoods. Over 2,000 people walk and bike the Trail every day, but a recent Gehl Studio study observed that the Trail is currently only for people in motion. With so many daily users and so few places to rest, interventions like seating and plazas could make the Trail a truly “sticky” public space–a place where people come and linger.

Next to the trail a 7’ x 29’ patch of grass has been transformed into a lively place for self-expression and exercise of the mind and body. Rail Trail Symphony is an installation of colorful musical instruments that offers an exciting interlude in daily routines and bridges social divides by encouraging collaborative jam sessions with neighbors.

Kids and families bang on drums and chimes, sing to passersby from a performance platform, scribble favorite lyrics, compose new melodies on a chalkboard,

dance on imaginative stamped concrete, and wave to the trains while resting on creative seating. This ensemble of physical components works in harmony, facilitating fun and casual interactions and conducting a beautiful “sidewalk ballet” starring Charlotteans from around the community. Easily accessible for a wide range of kids and families, Rail Trail Symphony’s open invitation to play fosters connections through the simple joy of making music.

Play Everywhere Continues The Play Everywhere Challenge was an effort to address the issue of play accessibility within cities and ensure kids have easy opportunities to play each day in everyday locations like bus stops, sidewalks, grocery stores, and more. The work continues today through city-specific versions of the National Challenge.

Play is garnering more attention and is a larger platform in city agendas across the country. Civic leaders around the U.S. are realizing the importance of designing cities with kids and families in mind and ensuring play is a priority. Because when kids play, we all win. •

Rail Trail Symphony Creating Playful Cities • 53

The Shrinking

Range of Play 6 miles

1919 Great Grandfather

54 • Design & Play

Just as play has evolved, so has a child’s ability to roam.

Due to increasing safety concerns and a lack of public play spaces, children today most often play in supervised locations close to home. This trend has escalated in recent decades, as evident in a 2007 case study following one rural UK family. The graphic below shows the distance family members from different generations were allowed to roam unsupervised at eight years old, demonstrating a shrinking range of play over time.

This data reflects many families’ experiences around the world. In urban areas, KaBOOM! is one organization working to provide safe yet stimulating play spaces in neighborhoods to address the lack of play opportunities.

1 mile 1/2 mile 300 yards

1950

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2007

Grandfather

Mother

Son

Source: David Derbyshire, “How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations,” Daily Mail, October 11, 2007.

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Designs for

Playful Cities

Architects and

Baltimore Bus Stop

Montreal Seesaws

designers are engaging communities in playful ways all over the world.

Here are a few amazing examples of how cities are integrating play into urban spaces:

In 2014, the Madrid-based artist collective mmmm... designed a brand new bus stop and meeting point in Baltimore, Maryland, in the form of three giant letters. BUS doubles as both a bus station and interactive sculpture, creating an opportunity for urban renewal through playful art. The unique space interrupts the busy city street and creates a fun environment while visitors wait. The letters allow people to assume different postures of sitting or standing, and provide both shelter and resting places. Each letter measures 14 feet tall by seven feet wide, creating a whimsical urban landmark.

Photo courtesy of Eva Márquez Salmerón

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Lateral Office and CS Design, from Toronto and Montreal respectively, collaborated in 2015 with engineers at EGP Group to install Impulse, a temporary, playful installation of 30 LEDlit seesaws in the heart of Montreal. The light intensity and sounds of each seesaw vary with each new movement. “Once in motion, the builtin lights and speakers produce a harmonious sequence of sounds and lights, resulting in a constantly evolving ephemeral composition,” says the project’s organizer.

Photo Courtesy of Ulysse Lemerise

Utrecht Slide

Boston Rings Fountain

Designed by HIK Ontwerpers, “Transfer Accelerator,” creates a fun and quick route through the Overvecht train station in Utrecht, Netherlands. The playful slide lets commuters skip the stairs and experience the thrill we all loved as kids. Introduced in an undertutilzed area of the station as part of HIK Ontwerper’s ongoing urban installation series, the slide is designed to add fun to the everyday lives of busy communters and passersby.

Rings Fountain is centrally located on Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. Visitors can navigate through the 64 water jets and cool off during the warm spring and summer months. The fountain’s close proximity to vendors, sidewalks, and busy city streets creates an integrated play space for both children and adults. The Greenway is dedicated to offering innovative spaces for free, including unstructured learning experiences that connect kids, families, and adults with playful urban elements.

Photo courtesy of HIK Ontwerpers.nl

Photo courtesy of Tom Berrigan

Vancouver Whoopdeedoo The Whoopdeedoo project is about breaking up the daily routine of commuter cycling in a fun and spontaneous way. Here, signs encourage bikers to indulge in a “whoopdeedoo” moment on their way to and from work along a local bike path. The temporary ramps add a fun element to commuting, creating a sense of excitement. Designed to promote Vancouver’s 2040 transportation plan encouraging citizens to reduce vehicle traffic by using new forms of transportation, the project promotes cycling as a playful and free way to travel.

Photo courtesy of Bob Kronbauer

Extraordinary Playscapes • 57

Esplanade Playspace Boston, MA Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc. and The Esplanade Association 58 • Design & Play

The central climbing structure, resembling a

1979

2017 2011

giant spider web, allows for climbers to work their way to the top and enjoy a fun slide down as the payoff.

Located along Boston’s Charles River Esplanade, the Esplanade Playspace is designed to keep children healthy and active by enhancing physical fitness and encouraging social interaction. The design intends to help kids build body strength—particularly upper body and core strength. The playground includes various structures that challenge kids and keeps them engaged for long periods of time, including a rock-climbing wall, a 65-foot zip line, a 20-foot climbing net, and a large log sculpture to test creative climbing techniques.

In 2009, local Boston residents formed Friends of the Esplanade Playspace to address the need for more adequate outdoor play areas for children between ages five and 12. With an increase of families in Boston and Cambridge, existing public playgrounds were reaching capacity. In cooperation with MassDCR, the group raised over $1.5 million for the construction and maintenance of the playspace.

Located on a former gravel lot, implementation of the playground involved a rigorous shade tree protection program. Halvorson Design Partnership designed the open and inclusive play zone with custom-fabricated play pieces and state-of-the-art manufactured elements.

In addition to being fun and helping kids stay fit, the space encourages children to form social bonds through playful interaction. Each designed element— from the rock wall to the story hut—allows children to build, climb, strategize, and explore together. Since completion, the Esplanade Playspace has gained national recognition for its design, and has influenced playground designs across the country.

Drawings courtesy of Halvorson Design Partnership

Photos courtesy of Ed Wonsek

Extraordinary Playscapes • 59

Geopark Stavanger, Norway • Helen & Hard AS and Norwegian Petroleum Museum

60 • Design & Play

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2017 2008

At Geopark, Norwegian architects Helen & Hard implemented a design concept based on three different local considerations: the geological and seismic expertise of the oil industry; the technology, materials, and waste related to oil production; and the ideas of local youth groups. Incorporating recycled and repurposed elements, the park has found extensive use from young kids, parents, and adolescents, turning the once abandoned site into a social meeting point.

As the base for Norway’s burgeoning oil industry, Stavanger quickly became a knowledge hub attracting specialists from around the world. Geopark is a playful urban space on the city’s waterfront that aims to provide a tangible experience of Troll gas field, a reservoir hidden 2000 to 3000 meters below the seabed.

Utilizing a vacant forecourt adjacent to the Oil Museum, the “geo-landscape” was developed in a sequence.

The topography of the park is based on the geological layers of the Troll field reconstructed in a scale of 1:500.

The first phase was a digital maneuver, where the 15 geological layers were partially peeled away to create the center-sloping landscape. Functions were then planned for the different sedimentary layers, including biking, climbing, exhibitions, concerts, and ball play. The layer containing the oil and its drilling wells became a skating park, and geological folds were used as exhibition walls for graffiti. Youth groups visited industrial sites to select materials to use as recycled pieces for the third phase of design. Surfaces and installations were donated or created using found elements from petroleum installations, the abandoned Frigg oil platform, offshore bases, and scrap heaps. The roughly $850,000 project was intended to be a temporary installation, but there is an ongoing discussion of making the popular park a permanent fixture.

Photos and drawing courtesy of Helen & Hard

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The Globe Aarhus, Denmark • MONSTRUM

62 • Design & Play

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2017 2013

The Globe playground is located outside of Scandinavia’s largest library in Denmark. At this playscape— appropriately referred to as “The Literate Playground”— visitors can engage with five different fantastical scenes, each inspired by books found within the library.

Fanning out from a central compass, five play areas organized as a “kloden” (globe) feature giant creatures and encompass diverse landscapes, geologies, cultures, and travels. Complete with animals and hidden treasures, the playground inspires explorative, active, and creative narrative play.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 63

Photos and drawings courtesy of Ole Barslund Nielsen, MONSTRUM

64 • Design & Play

Integrating play opportunities for children of all abilities was important to the design. Danish design firm MONSTRUM created spaces that feature level access and sitting areas for rest and relaxation as well as other accessible elements. The five areas offer a variety of opportunities and experiences for play: one features an oversized, climbable bear holding a twisting log that doubles as an enclosed slide. Kids can scale the bear structure through grips along its leg and crawl inside to reach the slide’s summit. Adults and children can also balance and bounce on a series of interactive raised platforms, each perched on moveable springs.

Other areas include a whimsical dragon whose tail functions as a slide, a volcano-like structure for climbing, a wooden eagle with outstretched wings, and a large monkey amidst a forest of climbable bamboo.

Marked with stories and fun facts about nature, animals, and geology, the floor design creates a “world tour” throughout the playscape, connecting the five areas and creating a fun, educational experience. The space aims to inspire knowledge and arouse curiosity while also creating opportunities for play and exercise.

Pairing perfectly with the volumes of storybooks in the adjacent library, the Globe playground truly brings imagination to life.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 65

Harper’s Playground Portland, OR • Girvin Associates, Inc., MIG, and PLACE Studio

66 • Design & Play

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2017 2012

There are three main challenges surrounding play: playgrounds segregate and limit activity for those with different abilities, all children lack enough free outdoor playtime critical to their well-being, and communities have insufficient opportunities to build a sense of connection and engagement. Harper’s Playground addresses each of these issues by eliminating the structure, woodchips, stairs, and prescribed pathways commonly found in playgrounds in order to foster fun for people of all abilities.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 67

G Cody QJ Goldberg and his daughter Harper enjoy the swings together at Harper’s playground.

68 • Design & Play

A Playscape for Everyone The Story of Harper’s Playground

By G Cody QJ Goldberg, Executive Director, Harper’s Playground Photos courtesy of Harper’s Playground and MIG

Harper Rose Kligman Goldberg was born on June 8, 2010. She struggled with every bit of strength her six pound, two ounce body could muster for each breath through the first few hours of her life. Harper survived an emergency surgery to remove an otherwise benign cyst blocking nearly 80% of her airway. The first month of her life was spent in the NICU marked by countless hours of feeling helpless, afraid, bewildered, and tired.

I am the father of this incredible girl, and having her in my life led me on an incredible design journey.

Shortly after Harper’s release from the NICU, my wife April and I learned that Harper has a rare genetic abnormality called Emmanuel Syndrome. Our doctors told us she wouldn’t be able to walk or talk her whole life. The next several weeks were a blend of loving and caring for our baby girl while navigating our shock and researching this little-known syndrome. We were exhausted. We felt helpless on so many levels.

I can recall the exact moment, in the midst of these early weeks of Harper’s life, when I made a pivotal decision: rather than focus on trying to change Harper, I would focus all of my energy on changing the world in which she lives. Fearful of how she would be treated, I searched for an outlet to change how the world would receive her. This outlet soon grew into a very special playground and a movement for accessible play.

celebration. She was cruising on her own! Yet everything changed when we reached the playground. Placed neatly within an expanse of wood chips, the typical “post and platform” structure might as well have displayed a “DO NOT ENTER” sign.

Harper had no way to maneuver herself and her “pony” across the unstable woodchips. Even if she could, to move around on the play structure in any meaningful way required the use of stairs.

The nearby swing set was equally problematic.

With limited upper body strength, Harper could not sit upright in the standard swings, and her four-year-old body would never fit in the bucket swings meant for infants. The devastation of experiencing these barriers to play, on what should have been a wholly celebratory day, launched our journey into playground design.

We soon came to learn that, as inaccessible as it was for Harper, this playground was actually deemed “ADA compliant” by virtue of its ramp and transfer deck. ADA refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a law prohibiting discrimination or inaccessibility to Americans with disabilities. As we dug deeper, learning just how little is required for playgrounds to receive ADA status, we became equally outraged and motivated to address this glaring problem. With deep conviction, April and I decided to build a playground—a better playground—for our Harper and for all children.

In the weeks and months that followed, we learned a great deal more about what does and does not work for children of all abilities in a typical playground.

More importantly, we learned that a solution to these problems could be surprisingly simple.

Our Inspiration At four years old, Harper had defied the odds and was learning to walk with the help of her little yellow walker, nicknamed her “pony.”

Having gained strength and coordination at her regular physical therapy sessions, we were ready to see if she could take a trip through the neighborhood. On a beautiful summer day, our family set out for Arbor Lodge Park in North Portland, a three-block walk from our home. The park had a beautiful meandering path that circled a baseball field, tennis courts, and a dog park, before ending at a playground.

We entered with anxious enthusiasm. Harper charged ahead of us—a moment that was cause for 69

Before

Vision for Harper’s Playground At first, our conviction to build a better playground resulted in a lot of talk. Then one day, mixed with my todo list of chores and errands was a note from April: “Call the parks bureau to get the ball rolling.” It was on the list, therefore it had to be done.

Our first call with Portland Parks & Recreation revealed a critical challenge, a lack of funding. We knew that if we could share a compelling vision for the playground, then we could raise the funds. On the advice of our new contact at Portland Parks, we started pitching to our local neighborhood. Much to our delight, the Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association not only voted to endorse our idea, but made it a “priority project.”

Through the Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association, we were introduced to the Kenton Action Plan, a nonprofit organization that soon became our fiscal sponsor, which allowed us to start raising tax-deductible donations almost immediately.

Another neighbor shared our story with a reporter from The Oregonian, which led to a feature story about our vision on the front page of the Metro section just a few months later. After that, we were inundated with calls from community members wanting to lend a hand and playground manufacturers wanting to sell their accessible designs. The stars were aligning. We had momentum.

For the better part of the next six months, we continued on two fronts. First, we fundraised: we did bake sales, tapped our networks, sold hats—we looked at every possible angle to fund this dream. Then, we began talking with representatives from playground equipment manufacturers to determine what our playground would look like.

Our original project scope included removing the existing structure, replacing the wood chips with smooth accessible surfacing, and installing an adaptive playground structure purchased from one of the manufacturers. Initial conversations 70 • Design & Play

After

indicated that the structure would cost approximately $200,000—this informed our original fundraising goal, but we didn’t account for the additional funds required for construction and installation. We had to raise more money.

Thankfully, our plan and budget projection took a positive turn when my childhood friend, a landscape designer named Todd Girvin, introduced us to Susan Goltsman. Susan was a world-renowned landscape architect and President of the firm MIG in Berkley, CA. In our first call with Susan, I explained the status of our project and our research on equipment manufacturers.

Her immediate response was, “No. No, no, no, no, no.”

This reaction confirmed my existing misgivings—a manufactured playscape wasn’t the right solution. Susan not only redirected our path, she offered her assistance in helping us completely reexamine and reimagine the playground design.

In March 2011, Susan came to Portland and helped host a key design charrette. At the table were members of our growing grassroots team including myself, April, Todd, our design intern, and members of the community, as well as members of Susan’s team at MIG and staff from Portland Parks & Recreation.

Susan began by guiding us through an exercise.

“Close your eyes,” she said. “Go back to your childhood; remember your favorite play activity.” We all shared our stories of play: in fields, near creeks, in trees, along fences, and more. We recalled playing make-believe with friends, and making use of our imaginations in unique natural settings. We recalled playing in places that weren’t intended for play at all. Susan remarked on an important observation: not one person at the charrette recalled fond memories of “that big colorful playground structure.”

As our discussion evolved, we questioned everything we knew about playground design—not only the features that specifically preclude kids using assistive devices, but the pervasive problems in the typical playground model

for all children. A traditional structure wasn’t going to work for Harper nor other children in the community.

Susan empowered us to create a completely new vision. Our goal was transformed: out was the initial plan to purchase a $200,000 manufactured model and in was the possibility of making something truly unique and accessible to all. In the end, we set a more realistic budget of $1.2 million, which would allow us to fully bring our new shared vision to life.

Designing for Harper’s Playground As is true of all good design, a great deal of intention went into every element of Harper’s Playground—the result is a play environment that feels simple, harmonious, and profound. Todd took the findings from our design charrette, input from several team design meetings, and additional feedback from Susan and myself to create a beautiful final concept.

Not only did Todd’s drawing guide our playground into reality, it also became an incredible tool for fundraising.

Its bold beauty garnered vast community support, it helped us bring the right team members on board, and it inspired a level of fundraising far beyond what we originally envisioned. Everyone who saw our vision was convinced this was going to become something extraordinary.

What makes this design so special? Three overarching tenets anchor it: flow, nature, and color. For flow, our top design priority was to get rid of wood chips, bark dust, stairs, prescribed pathways, and other barriers to accessibility. In fact, not only did we do away with stairs, we did away with the entire play structure. In its place we created what is better described as a play landscape: an open, natural-feeling space with gradual topographic variations and play features interspersed among winding paths, community seating, and unprogrammed spaces.

Overall, Harper’s Playground is not overly designed,

“

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.”

– Carl Jung

opting instead for open spaces where children and adults of all abilities can play together.

The landscape at Harper’s Playground is designed to evoke both the serenity and liveliness of being in nature.

One of the most recognized features of this approach is the hill, which allows kids to climb high without the need for stairs. A gradual spiral ramp circles to the top, arriving at our special slide. The slopes offer an infinite range of inclines, providing a platform for many modes of ability and creative play unencumbered by prescribed paths and vertical barriers. The hill allows kids to run, jump, roll, climb, slide, and more. We’ve witnessed a huge variety of play styles on this one simple feature.

We designed the playground to fit into the existing surroundings, adding plants and boulders to connect with the trees already around the park. Kids love climbing on, sitting on, and jumping off real boulders. We brought them

in from a local quarry rather than purchasing fake concrete or manufactured rock substitutes. The initial expense of these beautiful boulders is made up for with their durability and long-term value.

Sand is another critical natural material in the playground. What better way to play than by getting dirty to create something? A hand-operated wheel pumps water onto an elevated sand table where the two materials mix with natural cooperation. We regularly see families set up picnics right around the sand area, as the range of play activities it inspires are limitless and kids literally spend hours there.

Our color scheme is one of the more immediately striking differences from a standard playground. There are no unnaturally bright colors. Everything manufactured is green to fit in with the landscape and feel cohesively integrated into nature. The rubberized surfacing is tan to mimic the look of sand, and all metal surfaces are an unassuming silver. These colors emphasize natural beauty, allowing the playground to blend seamlessly into its surroundings and promote the joy of being in nature.

In addition to these natural elements, we have over 20 bronze animal sculptures throughout the playground including an alligator, otter, and sea fish. They promote awe and wonder and are fun to play with and on. An outdoor xylophone is mounted along the spiral path to the hill, attracting kids of all mobility levels to make music. And, our full-sized adaptive bucket swings ensure that everyone can partake in the critical play activity of swinging. Every element of Harper’s Playground was designed to empower kids and adults of all ages and abilities to play creatively.

Design is Love Harper’s Playground began with the idea that our daughter deserved to play in a place where she wasn’t limited by her

Susan Goltsman, FASLA, was the President and Principal at MIG, a landscape architecture firm.

Susan earned degrees in Environmental Design, Landscape Architecture, and Environmental Psychology. She was a career expert in the design and programming of play environments for children, youth, and families; a prolific and awardwinning designer, teacher, and author, who worked worldwide applying social science to design and create one of a kind environments that respond to the community. Susan passed away in 2016, leaving an incredible legacy.

Goltsman helped us shift the vision for Harper’s Playground away from: 1. Overly structured, prescriptive play: Kids are innately creative and curious; they crave and thrive on imagination and exploration. Real play is free flowing, spontaneous, experimental, and intrinsically motivating. In contrast, standard playground structures create environments with distinct pathways, prescribed play where “staying in the lines” is encouraged, and there are a lack of opportunities to create. This quickly makes play feel boring.

2. Manufactured materials: Nature is the best recipe for play. As validated by our team’s own recollections of childhood play, there is something magical in creating play with sticks, rocks, dirt, water, and mud; in playing on boulders and under a tree canopy; and in rolling hills and natural landscapes. Kids, and all people, are drawn to and inspired by natural materials. In contrast, a typical play structure’s brightly colored plastic situated on a flat bed of woodchips offers little play value.

3. Individual play: The prescribed paths and creativity-limiting design of standard playgrounds also discourage collaboration.

Social engagement is a critical component to play. Interpersonal experiences with peers of different ages, genders, backgrounds, and abilities are invaluable. Yet, standard playgrounds are laden with direct obstacles to social interaction.

A Playscape for Exeryone• 71

72 • Design & Play

wheels. Every decision that I fought for within our design was out of my love for Harper. As I continue to study and experience good design, I am struck by the obvious love and care designers have for their end users. Making spaces elegant and easy to navigate reflects an intense desire to make the built environment more welcoming and delightful.

Design thinking flipped our approach. No longer were we focused on one singular problem, but rather on the larger opportunity. Good design led us to understand that we could create a playground model that was not only better for Harper but also better for all children and all members of the community. It led us to understand the value of play through the lens of human connection and to realize the way in which good design can change people, communities, and the world around us.

I want both of my daughters to grow up in a world with equal opportunities of all kinds. Harper, who has a profound disability, and my other daughter, Lennon, who is considered “typically developing,” are both the lights of my life. Harper’s Playground is designed in a way that works wonders for both of them. The design story of Harper’s Playground is deeply personal, yet somehow very much a process that reveals profound public truths. All outdoor play spaces should be designed for every person and every ability. It just so happens that by making this one work for Harper, we made it work for everyone.

Helping to shape our next steps, we often receive inquiries from people across the country asking questions and looking for support to replicate our model in their local parks. Our dream of changing the world is taking on a life of its own.

We increasingly learn that what we created has implications far beyond our local playground. The process is an innovation that can elevate and strengthen countless communities. We know we have to keep going. In 2013, Harper’s Playground formed as an independent non-profit organization aimed at replication. With the underlying values of community, inclusion, and play, it is our mission to inspire vital communities to create innovative playgrounds for people of all abilities by sharing tools, resources, and support. •

Accessible to All We cut the ribbon on Harper’s Playground at Arbor Lodge Park on November 3, 2012. Our neighborhood playground, once inaccessible to both our family and many others, transformed into an inclusive, creative, welcoming, engaging, and innovative playscape.

Following two years of the hardest, most passiondriven work of my life, the ribbon cutting ceremony came with a surreal sense of relief and wonder. It was an inspiring, heart-bursting day, and I’m humbled to say that Portland Mayor Sam Adams summed it up well when he proclaimed it Goldberg Family Day.

Harper’s disability was never the problem—she just needed a place to play without limits, and now she has it.

Even more importantly, this is a place where she will grow up playing among her peers of all abilities; it is a place where Harper is a welcomed and valued member of our community and where her disability does not define or segregate her.

Even more awe-inspiring than the ribbon cutting is what happened next. Since it opened, Harper’s Playground has become infused with life. Rain or shine, our playground is constantly busy with play. Families with children of all ages and abilities come from throughout the region to play. As its design intended, the space brings together more people, encourages more play, and creates more activity. The new vitality in the neighborhood is palpable and we are thankful for positive responses from local community members and the media alike.

A Playscape for Exeryone • 73

Helen Diller Playground San Francisco, CA Koch Landscape Architecture and Friends of Dolores Park 74 • Design & Play

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2017 2012

The Helen Diller Playground in Mission Dolores Park was reopened in 2012, after a $3.5 million redesign that transformed an aging and inaccessible site into a wonderland of inviting children’s play spaces. Prior to renovation, the park was described as “lovingly worn, dangerous and out of date.” The Friends of Dolores Park Playground rallied enthusiasm from local groups, neighbors, and the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department to help reinvent the playground for the 21st century.

Based in Portland, Oregon, Koch Landscape Architecture was invited to redesign the playground and came to the project with a focus on the developmental needs of children, existing topography, and improving ADA access within the space. Plans were developed after numerous public workshops to solicit community input. Both the friends group and the donors asked KLA to make use of durable, sustainable, and natural materials, and to provide as much imaginative interaction with nature as possible. The main challenge was to integrate natural materials into the heavily used urban park playground.

The new design increases opportunities for play on the site’s steep hillside and incorporates custom elements such as natural stone climbing walls, sand play areas, and bespoke play and climbing equipment from TimberForm—used for the park’s 36-foot serpentine slide. A central accessible perimeter path rises 10 feet above the main play area and leads to the central mound.

The bridge allows visitors with physical constraints to access the mound and its slides, climbing nets, and small amphitheater. Flanked by palm trees and vegetation, the design provides room to explore and adds to the thrill of being up high in a tree canopy over San Francisco.

Photos and drawing courtesy of Koch Landscape Architects

Extraordinary Playscapes • 75

Highland Center Playscape Crawford Notch, NH Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc. and The Appalachian Mountain Club 76 • Design & Play

“Through this creative, free-play, kids can get used to some of the terrain they would encounter hiking.”

1979

- Sara DeLucia, AMC

2017 The use of natural materials was vital to the design process; the incorporated stone

2012

was locally sourced from a nearby quarry, and all plantings are native to the area.

The Highland Center Playscape at Crawford Notch aims to create an innovative, natural “learning playscape” for kids and families. Here, children can climb rock staircases to the summit of the miniature mountain, use loose materials to construct their own lean-tos, explore tunnels, run along a swinging rope bridge, and discover the “bear’s den” and rock garden—all amidst the beautiful backdrop of the Appalachian Mountains.

The process began as a joint effort between the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and Halvorson Design Partnership landscape architects. In conjunction with the AMC’s mission of promoting the protection, enjoyment, and understanding of the mountains, forests, waters, and trails of America’s Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, the playscape encourages people to experience, learn about, and appreciate the natural world. The site is described as “a first step into the world of outdoor exploration, learning, and fun for kids who may not have spent much time in the outdoors.”

As both a recreational and educational space, it serves as an introduction to what one might experience when exploring the adjacent mountains and trails.

The design aims to be as sustainable as possible; situated on a reclaimed site, the playscape was inspired by natural formations that can be found nearby and mimics natural ecological cycles. The use of natural materials was vital to the design process; the incorporated stone was locally sourced from a nearby quarry, and all plantings are native to the area. The playscape also supports many of the AMC’s educational programs like their astronomy course, which allows children and adults to use the playscape’s “Alpine Summit” as an observatory for stargazing.

Photos and drawing courtesy of Halvorson Design & AMC

Extraordinary Playscapes • 77

Himmelhøj Copenhagen, Denmark • Alfio Bonnano

78 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2004

Himmelhøj is an art-installation-meets-nature playground—a tactile playscape of wood, stone, and earth that inspires viewers of all ages to experience Copenhagen’s natural environment. The site allows for diverse visual, physical, and mental activities as kids scramble over rock mounds inside a landlocked Ark, explore the circular thicket of the Insect Forest, and warm themselves within the giant Fireplace.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 79

“I envisioned a very large organic Ark-like structure stranded in this flat borderland landscape. The Ark that had come with its load of animals, insects and plants would create a fertile ground for stimulating stories, nature education and, of course, play.”

- Alfio Bonanno

Himmelhøj took two years to plan and one year to build, using 510 charred oak trees, 1300 Thuja planks, 30 uprooted pine trees, and hundreds of tons of granite boulders.

80 • Design & Play

In 2001, the Danish Ministry of the Environment invited artist Alfio Bonanno to convert the Vestamager Nature Center into a recreational play area. Bonanno’s challenge was to create a visually striking site that would engage children of all ages and be durable enough to withstand heavy usage and natural elements.

The result is Himmelhøj (Sky-High), an installation consisting of three interconnected but independent, structures located on the flat, marshy island of Amager.

The first work visitors encounter is Amager Ark, the site’s ‘flagship’ 60-yard-long wooden boat containing lookout platforms, stepping stones, and a spiral tower made of granite boulders. This is followed by the Insect Forest, a circular labyrinth made of 350 charred oak trees—burnt to protect them from rotting—which house live insects that users are encouraged to examine. Inside the Insect Forest is a nest-like shelter and a fireplace surrounded by ancient boulders. The campsite-like Fireplace is defined by 30 uprooted pine trees whose roots envelop the visitor upon entering the space.

Himmelhøj’s interactive sculptures act as a catalyst for discovery, discussion, and play. The site provides a place for the local community to interact and coexist, and has even adopted the local wildlife and vegetation into its landscape. As the naturally decaying materials require consistent upkeep, the Danish Ministry is currently raising funds to rebuild the public landmark’s Ark.

Photos and drawings courtesy of Alfio Bonanno

Extraordinary Playscapes • 81

Imagination Playground Rockwell Group

82 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2010

Photo courtesy of Tom Moore

Imagination Playground is a groundbreaking play space concept conceived and designed by world-renowned architect David Rockwell. With a focus on uniquely designed individual parts, Imagination Playground offers an array of connecting elements that allow children to constantly reconfigure their environment and design their own course of play.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 83

The Imagination Playground at Burling Slip, a pro-bono collaboration between Rockwell Group and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, opened in 2010. The park has three key components: loose blocks and tools, sand and water features, and play associates who help children with games of their own making.

Photo courtesy of TalismanPHOTO

84 • Design & Play

Photo courtesy of Frank Oudeman

While spending time with his two children in New York City, Rockwell noticed that local playgrounds were not designed to encourage imagination and creativity.

His subsequent five-year design journey began in the research and development phase, which continues with new models under constant development. Architecture and design firm Rockwell Group built full-scale mockups of the loose parts, tested them at play events, collected data on how different ages groups used them, held conferences with teachers, and conducted workshops to hone the designs.

The shapes, scale, and feel of the blocks are the product of extensive research and prototyping to find forms that would inspire, build on each other, and make endless shapes and landscapes. The movable kit of parts can instantly transform smaller, unused spaces into dynamic play spaces. The mission of Imagination Playground is to bring child-directed free play to as many communities as possible. The cost-efficient, easyto-install playgrounds have since enlivened thousands of public parks, schools, facilities, and children’s museums all over. The increasing presence of this model throughout the world has helped raise awareness about the possibilities for play. With little resources or space, children can still have a dynamic play experience.

Photo courtesy of TalismanPHOTO

Photo courtesy of Christopher Amaral

Extraordinary Playscapes • 85

Infinity Climber Jersey City, NJ • Luckey Climbers

86 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2014

The Infinity Climber at the Liberty Science Center is a suspended multi-story playscape daring visitors to climb, crawl, and balance through pathways as high as 35 feet above the atrium floor. Up to 50 children and adults can navigate the giant structure at once, allowing school groups and families to play together. Weighing in at 21,000 pounds and using 19 miles of steel cable, the Infinity Climber is the world’s first suspended climbing play space of its kind.

Liberty Science Center was interested in building a three-dimensional play space that would be as visually beautiful as it was intellectually engaging.

The challenge: the playscape needed to suspend in the atrium and not rely on the floor for support. Bespoke design-build firm Luckey Climbers took on the task by creating a “suture” design inspired by baseball stitches for the climbable play structure. The biggest challenge was fabricating the curve itself; since a large-diameter steel pipe could not be accurately rolled in two planes, the suture was subdivided into eight identical segments curved in one plane, which were then joined at an angle that approximated the three-dimensional shape. The segments were consolidated into four quadrants that were then lifted and bolted together onsite.

Once the suture curve was installed, the smaller secondary spiral steel pipes and 64 petal-like bent plywood platforms were added. The platforms were then fully enclosed in a strong safety mesh, forming pathways and tunnels through the structure that prevent any dangerous falls. Made possible through sophisticated engineering, the physically challenging environment engages sensorimotor learning that encourages kids to exercise their minds and bodies.

Photos and drawings courtesy of Luckey Climbers

Extraordinary Playscapes • 87

KidZooU Philadelphia, PA Cambridge Seven Associates, SMP Architects and Philadelphia Zoo 88 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2013

Goats are natural climbers with great balance. In this playscape, children have the opportunity to observe and test these same skills in the Goat Tower and on a balance beam.

Children at KidZooU have the unique opportunity to play alongside animals. Here, visitors are encouraged to have up-close encounters with goats and primates, observe the animals’ amazing abilities, and then test their own skills. A campus-wide network of meshenclosed trails, called Zoo360, encourages kids and animals to interact with each other. Animals travel throughout, increasing the variety of environments and their ability to determine their own experiences.

Architecture and exhibit design firm Cambridge Seven Associates designed the kids play yard, interactive exhibits, and graphics in the outdoor space where animals roam on over 400 feet of trails. The site’s main structures are designed to reflect the adjacent animal enclosures, providing human-animal parallel play. In the Goat Tower, constructed from galvanized metal and netting, goats climb and cross over pedestrian walkways on an eye-to-eye level with children. From the Primate Rope Climb, children get an elevated view of lemurs and monkeys moving through a net structure.

The playscape at KidZooU is LEED Gold certified and required a budget of $674,000. Designed for a diverse audience, the site’s graphics incorporate Braille, Universal Sign Language, QR codes for foreign languages, and “KidZooUPix” symbols. The elevated goat viewing platform is also wheelchair accessible. The surrounding environment includes native plants, green roofs, a rain garden, and a rainwater collection system.

Educational graphics throughout highlight the zoo’s commitment to the environment and actions visitors can take to help.

Photo courtesy of Maltbie

Photos courtesy of Kwesi Budu-Arthur

Extraordinary Playscapes • 89

Koret Children’s Quarter San Francisco, CA • MIG Inc.

90 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2006

The new Koret Children’s Quarter was designed to integrate adventure and discovery into play by creating a space where kids can use their imaginations and alter their environment. The design reflects San Francisco’s natural landscape as it transitions from forested hills to the sea. A boulder-lined stream meanders through hillside lookouts, a treehouse village, and a wetland zone where children can sway on whimsical, oversized cattails. Kids can run through tide pools and dig for artifacts in different sand zones that allow for creative water and sand play.

Believed to be the first public playground in America, the playground at Golden Gate Park opened in 1887 and was previously renovated in 1977. Working closely with the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, MIG landscape architects created an extensive design program to meet current safety standards. They began by gathering input from city staff, residents, and children through onsite sessions and a design charrette.

The site contained beloved features that had been there for almost 40 years, but many of the park’s historic elements like the carousel and cement slides did not meet present-day safety codes. Reaching a compromise was important to the new design, and the slides were eventually renovated and preserved after community insistence and the City’s Risk Manager’s approval.

The nearly $2 million budget—money raised by the Friends Group from the Koret Foundation—posed challenges; the complete design required supplemental funds that took over five years to raise. A postoccupancy evaluation found that the design integrates children of all abilities, desegregates boys and girls, and keeps people onsite for an average of two hours or more per visit.

The park’s aquatic forms created by artists Vicki Saulls and Scott Peterson inspire imaginative play and include tactile tide pools and water jets erupting from sculpted sea lions.

Photos courtesy of Billy Hustace and MIG. Inc.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 91

The Land North Wales, UK • Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham

92 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2012 Eco Friendly by design, the facility utilizes and maintains existing natural features

The Land, an adventure or junk playground in Wales, deviates completely from standard safety-conscious playgrounds often seen in the U.S. Filled with piles of pallets, tires, wheelbarrows, fishing nets, ropes, fire pits, tools, and other ever-changing materials, the play space fosters “risky play” by encouraging kids to experiment with loose parts and create their own experiences.

including trees, the water course, and some of the planting.

The site is integrated into the community and is easily accessible by foot, bicycle, and public transportation.

Claire Griffiths, The Land’s manager, turned to the local community to assist with the engineering and logistics for the space. Her father’s friend drew up the plans while Claire identified a local company to undertake the ground work and build the site’s surrounding fence. As the biggest construction cost, the fencing helps clearly outline the space and designate it for children. All other creations within followed.

Here, children are free to explore, create, build, and destroy, constantly changing the site’s topography.

While kids are given free range to assess risks themselves, the park is staffed with on-site “playworkers.” Acting as helpers rather than supervisors, playworkers are professionally trained in the “risk benefit assessments” for every activity. For example, when children play with fire, the benefits—experiencing social and cooperative play, learning to experiment, managing risk, and testing fire’s properties and power—often outweigh the risk of accidental burns since playworkers are always nearby. Although the play opportunities are not “risk free” by design, the site allows children to play naturally and express themselves within a safe and secure environment.

“I loved giving children a space where they could just be children, where they could try and fail without being judged or assessed.”

— Claire Griffiths,

Manager of The Land

Photos courtesy of The Land

Extraordinary Playscapes • 93

Children build adventure playscapes during a pop-up play day with Portland Free Play in Portland, OR.

94 • Design & Play

The Case for Adventure Play Introducing a Bit of Risk Into Play Could Save Our Kids

By Katie Shook, MUDLAND, with contribution from Leon Smith, Portland Free Play Photos courtesy of Katie Shook

A group of kids lift scrap wood into place to form a wall of their new fort. Another group is pushing each other ever higher and faster on a kid-built tire swing. Others huddle around a pile of sticks—while one child works to start a fire, another saws large branches into smaller pieces to be added to the flames. All this with no adult supervision. Sound crazy and dangerous? Maybe, but many adults may remember similar instances from their own childhood. What’s changed? What have we lost, and what do we serve to gain from risky play?

The Birth of Adventure Play Adventure Play is an international movement based on a deep valuing of children’s right to freely chosen, selfdirected, and intrinsically motivated play. It is grounded in the idea that a play environment, rich in variables that children can manipulate, is the best environment to support play. Adventure Play encourages kids to practice taking appropriate risks in a safe environment.

The Adventure Play movement was born in WWIIera Denmark, took roots in England after the war, and has since blossomed into an international movement.

In Europe, Adventure Play advocacy has grown into a profession, with university courses in play theory and playwork training. There are over 1,000 adventure playgrounds across Europe, with around 90 in London alone.1 There are many Adventure Play playgrounds in Japan as well, and temporary pop-up Adventure Play events held all over the world.

The idea for Adventure Play took seed with the first junk playground created by Carl Theodor Sorensen in German-occupied Copenhagen in 1943. Sorensen, a landscape architect, noticed that children weren’t playing in the playgrounds he designed. Instead, they were playing in empty lots and bomb sites. Sorensen realized that children enjoyed the interesting materials found in those types of places and decided to create a space in a safe, designated location where they could build with scrap materials and play as they wished—to experience the adventure they desired so passionately in a space that adults made sure was as free of hazards as possible.

The idea made its way to England via Lady Marjorie Allen of Hurtwood, who had visited the junk playground in Denmark and was inspired to make equally engaging playscapes back at home. She envisioned play spaces that beckoned children to test, discover, and create their own environments, but that were safer than the rubble left in bombed-out cities after WWII. These unique playscapes became known as adventure playgrounds.

Playworkers & Loose Parts At adventure playgrounds, children get the freedom, tools, and materials they desire, while a helpful adult, the playworker, is nearby but not hovering. Playworkers are adults present as advocates of children’s play, who make minimal interventions and act to support and facilitate challenging play.2 While adventure play can look risky and dangerous to the outsider, the premise is actually to create a safe place for children to be able to dream up, build, and test their best ideas.

Permanent adventure playgrounds often contain elements such as scrap materials like wood and metal, with tools like hammers, nails, and saws for building

with. Rope swings, fabric hammocks, old tires, shovels, mounds of dirt, dug-out ditches, kid-built forts, industrial scraps (that have been selected for safety), firepits, fires, and mud can all be present in an adventure playground.

In the 1970s architect Simon Nicholson proposed his theory of “loose parts” play; “In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it,” he wrote.3 According to Nicholson, loose parts should have no defined use, be accessible to children without the aid of adults, and be regularly replenished, changed, and added. These loose parts, tools, and materials form the foundation of adventure playgrounds.

Changing Attitudes on Risk Adventure Play experienced a groundswell of support in the 1970s in the U.S., and the American Adventure Playground Association documented a total of sixteen adventure playgrounds across the country in 1977.4 The two adventure playgrounds in the U.S. that still remain from that time period are both in California: 95

the Berkeley Adventure Playground, which opened in 1979, and the Huntington Beach Adventure Playground, which relocated to its current location in 1983.

The 1980s saw a rise in the number of lawsuits associated with injury on playgrounds, and new, more stringent regulations about play equipment were instituted. During that time, many adventure playgrounds were shut down, and other interesting playgrounds with artist-designed play sculptures and custom elements that didn’t fit the new stricter guidelines were decomissioned as well.5

Parents subsequently became more hesitant to allow their children to engage in risky play while roaming free with little or no supervision. Very few American children today enjoy the freedom of play that their parents did. This change has been concurrent with a rise in fear of child abduction based on a few tragic cases that received intense media coverage at the time.

The growing concern of allowing children to play outside on their own, competition from screens and electronics, and increased academic and extracurricular expectations have influenced the tendency for children to spend less time outdoors engaged in unstructured playtime.

Children today are missing out on all the benefits of playing outside with free time to explore, and the growth that takes place by facing challenges through healthy risk-taking. Less parental intervention allowed past generations of kids to play unsupervised outside in ways that incorporated some risk and lots of reward.

Conversely, many parents today feel the need to be in constant control and oversight of children’s play activities to reduce danger, save them from judgement, and focus their children on academic achievement.

96 • Design & Play

Benefits of Risky Play Fortunately, the tide may be turning. Concerns about “helicopter parenting” and the need to allow children to take more risks are fueled by recent stories like The Atlantic’s “The Overprotected Kid,” The New Yorker’s “The Child Trap,” and Erin Davis’ The Land, a documentary film about an Adventure Playground in Wales.6 More and more parents are worried that their children are not getting enough time to engage in unstructured outdoor play, as recent studies show that a lack of challenging play may correlate with a decline in children’s ability to think creatively, problem solve, and engage in abstract thinking.

By engaging in risky play appropriate to age and ability, kids develop a capacity to keep themselves safe.

They practice using their judgment and making sound choices. In his groundbreaking work, Dr. Stuart Brown has documented how children deprived of risky play actually tend to develop very real, risky adult behaviors.7 Kirsty Wilson, a play specialist at Children’s Scrapstore in Bristol, U.K., says that when she asks groups of adults over the age of 30 to recollect memorable play moments from their childhood, more than 90% recall instances when they were playing outside, without adult supervision, and with some element of risk. She says when she asks the same question to groups under 30, the number of folks who consistently played outside drops dramatically, as does the likelihood that an adult wasn’t present.

Thankfully, many folks are aware of the lack of diverse play opportunities and are trying to change it. We’ve seen a new rise in interest in Adventure Play in America. Groups running pop-up play days are sprouting up and there is a growing desire to create permanent spaces for kids to play this way.

Pop-Up Adventure Play is an organization of play specialists in the U.K. and U.S. who run online training for playworkers, provide information to anyone who wants to make Pop-Up Adventure Play events, and mentor people around the world who are advocating for free play in their own communities. Their program for playwork certification is creating a deeper understanding of adventure play and connecting pockets of playworkers around the globe.

In Portland, Oregon, the organization Portland Free Play runs pop-up play days and recently completed a pilot program at a public elementary school, supplying loose parts at recess over a 4-week period. The group is mentored by a U.K.-based play organization, Children’s Scrapstore, which runs over 300 such programs across the United Kingdom and reaches over 85,000 students a day. They found that introducing loose parts at recess encourages collaboration and creativity among children.

Through this program, stunning benefits have been recorded, such as increased focus in the classroom after recess, greater inclusivity (kids who previously played alone began joining in with other groups), increased social interactions across ages, and fewer incidents of injury on the playground.

There’s a strong case to be made that access to opportunities for unstructured activities prepares children for the kind of problem solving and creative thinking needed to tackle complex issues later on.

Children’s ability to guide themselves toward the learning they need may be better preparation for their future than any curricula designed by adults. If we can trust the inherent knowledge children have of what they want to explore in play, we stand to grow our potential as a society. This could be the very real future benefit of allowing more open-ended play in children’s present lives. • Notes & Sources: p.170

“

It is better to risk a broken leg than a broken spirit. A leg can always mend. A spirit may not.”

— Lady Allen of Hurtwood

What We Learn From Challenging Play Challenging play combines freedom and fun to create thrilling activities that sometimes include the possibility of physical injury, whether real or perceived. Challenging or “risky” play provides children with the motivation and opportunity to problem solve, discover new ways of doing things, assess risks, and manage new situations.

Natural Elements

Fast Motion

Great Heights

Interacting with natural elements like cliffs, water, rocks, fire, hills, and trees teaches children about nature while increasing a sense of curiosity and wonder.

When fast motion comes into play on swings, zip lines, bikes, and sildes, children learn how to improve their balance and coordination, as well as practice risk management.

Climbing to higher elevations and playing on monkey bars, ropes, and ladders helps children practice balance while experiencing new vantage points and achieving a sense of accomplishment.

Unsupervised & Explorative

Functional Tools

Children gain skills and knowledge in self-reliance, problem solving, risk evaluation, curiosity, independence, and confidence by exploring alone or without adult supervision.

When children play with tools such as hammers, nails, fire, and bows and arrows, they learn about cause and effect, practice fine motor skills, and feel a sense of increased responsibility and trust.

“Rough and Tumble” Children learn negotiation skills, cooperative group play, teamwork, social skills, and empathy by participating in activities like tag, wrestling, and running.

The Case for Adventure Play • 97

The Lawn on D Boston, MA • Sasaki Associates and MCCA

98 • Design & Play

“Yes, it’s temporary. But the very fact that it is temporary gives us an opportunity to try things we might not otherwise do. I’d like to encourage more of these temporary spaces.”

- 2015 Awards Jury

1979

2017 2014

Summer activities like bocce, concerts, and ping pong as well as fall and winter activities like beer tasting, crafts, and sledding are just some of Lawn on D’s successful programs.

The Lawn on D is an experimental, multipurpose public park that brings art, games, food, music, and free events to the buzzing Innovation District in Boston.

Set within an interactive, technologically advanced, and art-oriented community, D Street’s once underused landscape—composed mostly of vacant lots, aged industrial buildings, and surface parking—is now a new model for playful open space catering to adults.

The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA), in partnership with urban design team Sasaki Associates, conceived of the Lawn on D as a flexible, vibrant, and temporary urban space. Packing multiple agendas and possibilities into almost three acres required skillful design and strong vision. A construction budget under $1.5 million was achieved by concentrating investment in a small and intimate area within the landscape and making playful use of low-cost materials, such as the plaza’s painted asphalt. Knowing that the space would operate in an interim condition, the client and design team developed signature furniture and reusable elements to set a flexible tone.

The site is composed of two parts: the plaza and the lawn, each designed for flexibility and ease of transformation. The plaza is a hub of activity for events.

Its signature lights create a lively area for gatherings, and its bright, playful, movable furniture invites visitors to make the space their own. The lawn itself is an incubator of strong design and plays host to art, temporary installations, music, furniture, and diverse events. Captivating both young and old and tourists and residents alike, The Lawn on D has become a unique open space that sets a strong tone for civic impact.

Photos and Drawings courtesy of Sasaki Associates and MCCA

Extraordinary Playscapes • 99

Lions Park Playscape Greensboro, AL • Auburn University Rural Studio

100 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2011

Lions Park Playscape stretches the traditional definition of a playground by providing an immersive environment integrated into the larger landscape rather than individual pieces of “object” play equipment. In addition to promoting physical activity, the environment incorporates mental stimulation and development by promoting imagination and creativity, challenge and competition, and basic skills related to color, shapes, and time that children learn at early ages—all through the innovative use of recycled materials.

Drawing courtesy of Rural Studio

Lions Park has always been an actively used resource in Greensboro, but after the local community realized that the 40-acre park was not functioning at its fullest potential, they formed the Lions Park Committee.

In 2005, the committee came to Rural Studio—an undergraduate program of the school of Architecture at Auburn University—with a desire to create a strategic plan for the park that would enhance the social environment and make better use of park resources.

The project required the resourcefulness of its student builders to minimize the cost of construction and maintenance. This was most notably reflected in the material palette, which focuses on efficiency and durability. The play area was built with 3,000 55-gallon galvanized barrels originally used to transport valuable mint oil, a key ingredient in toothpaste and chewing gum. Using the barrels to create a maze promotes both imagination and creativity through innovative repurposing. The space encourages running, hiding, jumping, climbing, and other exploratory experiences that support physical activity. Additional undulating ground surfaces, sound tubes, and sensory rooms are hidden throughout the maze to heighten discovery, provide mental stimulation, and encourage imagination.

Photos courtesy of Timothy Hursley

Extraordinary Playscapes • 101

Maggie Daley Park Chicago, IL • Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

102 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2014

Photo courtesy of Scott Shigley

Maggie Daley Park is a curvilinear, topographically dramatic, and diverse multi-functioning feature of downtown Chicago. With an ice skating “ribbon,” largerthan-life climbing structures, and giant slides, the park synthesizes nature and fantasy to create a world of play with endless options for activity. Oriented on two diagonal axes, the park’s layering of spaces allows for a variety of programs. Running northwest-to-southeast, a corridor of active recreation includes a three-acre Play Garden, café, and rock-climbing park. From northeastto-southwest, continuous valleys and pathways provide opportunities for play in open spaces.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 103

In the winter, the Ice Ribbon creates an adventurous journey through the park unlike the typical rink experience. The Ribbon becomes a paved path in the summer, maintaining its function as a skating area and enabling circulation of the space.

In the winter, the Ice Ribbon creates an adventurous journey through the park, unlike the typical rink experience. The Ribbon becomes a paved path in the summer, maintaining its function as a skating area and enabling circulation of the space.

Photos and drawings courtesy of MVVA

104 • Design & Play

Reminders of the natural world are interspersed throughout: the Slide Crater area includes pockets of lush vegetation, and the Enchanted Garden’s inverted honey locusts playfully confuse the distinction between what is natural and what is man-made. Here, visitors of all ages let their curiosity carry them through this brightly colored park full of imaginative play.

A combination of public funds and private donations totaling $62.5 million was dedicated to the redevelopment of what is now the 27.7-acre park.

Catering to a wide range of ages and abilities, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates landscape architects’ design designates sub-gardens that incorporate different levels of risk throughout the park. Areas such as the Toddler Swings allow parents to stay close to children while still enforcing a sense of free play and interaction. The Sea and the Nest Swings are more vertically complex and integrate intellectual stimulation for older children. The addition of kid-powered light generation in the lighthouse tower, talking tubes, and viewing scopes offer further opportunities for exploration and discovery, while the Play Garden provides accessible equipment, themed zones, and multifunctional areas for play driven by imagination.

Oriented on diagonal axes, the park’s layering of spaces allows for a variety of programs.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 105

Mount Greenwood Park Chicago, IL • Hitchcock Design Group

106 • Design & Play

1979

2017

Chicago Public Art Group led an after school program where students worked with local artists to design and assemble mosaics that are featured along the main walk of the park.

2009

Mount Greenwood Park creates an appealing, accessible, and educational play environment through the seamless integration of public art and interactive musical sculptures. Community meetings allowed the public to assist in creating a plan that engages children from ages two to 12, cultivates their interest in the arts, and inspires creativity and exploration.

Recognizing the importance of outdoor play for children and families of all abilities, the Mount Greenwood Park Advisory Council formed a playground committee to spearhead park renovations. The council worked with Hitchcock Design Group and the Chicago Park District to develop a plan for the $1.2 million renovation.

Spiraling out of the ground to a six-foot peak and culminating in a 15-foot-tall spiral bell with chimes, the main walkway was designed to reflect the ancient sand ridge where Mount Greenwood originated. Sculptor James Brenner and acoustical design collaborator Jake Worley-Hood worked with the Chicago Public Art Group to design interactive instruments that stimulate visual, audible, and tactile senses. The 14-foot-tall cymbal, steel drums, xylophones, and rainmaker are constructed from steel with patina-coated finishes, and are designed to withstand years of outdoor use.

Additional recreational experiences include a hill slide, pipe climber, and climbing net and mounds. Custom structures with raised decks, ramps, slides, activity panels, and swings for all ages and abilities were installed over a playfully patterned rubber surfacing system. A spray pad allows children to interact with water and provides a cooling zone during hot summers.

Improvements to site furniture, accessible paths, lighting, ornamental fencing, and the landscape all contribute to the enhanced playscape.

Photos and drawing courtesy of Hitchcock Design Group

Extraordinary Playscapes • 107

Muskrat Ramble Olympia, WA • Patrick Dougherty

108 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2012 Drawing courtesy of Patrick Dougherty

Sculptural artist Patrick Dougherty weaves saplings into enormously inviting and playful sculptures. The artist planned for plenty of movement within the sculptures he desinged for the Hands on Children’s Center in WA. Muskrat Ramble places an emphasis on doors, windows, and hidden holes—all scaled to provide a sense of intimacy and visual excitement. The delicate flow invites participation, inspires a sense of inquisitiveness, and embodies the joy of discovery that creates a unique opportunity for play.

“I have come to believe that one’s childhood shapes a sculptor’s choice of his or her materials.”

- Patrick Dougherty

Beginning with a team of volunteers and a large supply of sticks, it took Dougherty roughly three weeks to create the sculpture. His main source of inspiration came from the idea of children practicing the loops of cursive handwriting. Using the cursive as a footprint, he drew the design on the ground and let the lines suggest the sculpture’s form. Walls form a continuous loop, rising up like vines overtaking trees in the wild to suggest flying, spinning tops, or amorphous shapes.

Dougherty continues to be influenced by his childhood in the woodlands of North Carolina, where spaces are overgrown with small trees and forests are a tangle of intersecting natural lines. Tree branches and saplings have rich associations with childhood play and constructed animal shelters; here, maple vines, cherry branches, and elm are all used to create the large environmental work. “Picking up a stick and bending it seems to give me big ideas,” says Dougherty. “I think this ‘know how’ is one that every human carries as a legacy from our hunting and gathering past. When I turned to sculpture in the early ‘80s, I had to rediscover what birds already knew: sticks have an infuriating tendency to entangle with each other. It is this simple tangle that holds my work together.”

Photos courtesy of Aaron Barna

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Neptune Park Saratoga Springs, UT • J-U-B Engineers, Inc. and Play Space Design

110 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2012

Neptune Park offers the largest climbing pyramid in North America. Reaching 30 feet in height, the Neptune XXL climbing structure became the park’s centerpiece, making the site a regional destination for thrilling and challenging play. Consisting of criss-crossed cables that create a challenging and fun ascent to the peak, the mountain-like structure compliments Utah’s surrounding topography and national parks.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 111

“

We wanted a play piece to reference the

natural surroundings, not replicate them.”

— Greg Grave, J-U-B Engineers

With a budget of roughly $1.7 million, Saratoga Springs’ “destination” park encourages participation from children of all age groups and abilities, provides space for community events, and utilizes structures that promote active minds and physical challenges.

Landscape architects J-U-B Engineers developed a master plan and construction documents for the City’s main park. Focusing on the play area became the catalyst for the overall design, and the climbing tower— from playground manufacturers Berliner Seilfabrik— became the park’s centerpiece. The first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, the structure provides a chance for kids to explore, strategize, succeed, fail, and challenge themselves to climb higher.

The Neptune XXL is also supported by numerous other exciting pieces of play equipment from manufacturers Berliner and Kompan. Besides climbing, children can swing, slide, bounce, see-saw, balance, run, and spin on the equipment, either alone, in pairs, or in groups of more than a dozen at once. The playground also includes a “tot lot,” dotted with colorful and distinct play equipment suited for younger children.

The city does not maintain an age restriction for the climbing pyramid, nor is the play area fenced. Despite its height, the structure’s design ensures the potential fall height never exceeds six feet and that any falls are cushioned by interior netting.

112 • Design & Play

The city does not maintain an age restriction for the climbing pyramid, nor is the play area fenced. Despite its height, the structure’s design ensures the potential fall height never exceeds six feet and that any falls are cushioned by interior netting.

Photo and drawings courtesy of J-U-B Engineers

Extraordinary Playscapes • 113

Parque Gulliver Valencia, Spain • Rafael Rivera, Manolo Martín, and Sento Llobell

114 • Design & Play

1979

2017 1990

Inspired by the classic adventure tale by Jonathan Swift, Parque Gulliver brings the iconic story of Gulliver’s Travels to life in the form of a giant sculptural playground. The park is designed for true public participation: visitors become the actors, audience, and part of the sculptural stage that comes to life when children are playing. Climbing, running, sliding, and hiding become remarkable feats atop the giant sculpture designed to encourage truly imaginative play.

One of the most iconic images in Swift’s novel occurs after the hero has landed in the country of Lilliput.

Frightened by Gulliver’s giant size in their tiny land, the Lilliputians bind him to the ground to prevent his escape. This is replicated in the design of the park. The park was commissioned by the City of Valencia in 1990, and Architect Rafael Rivera, artist Manolo Martin, and designer Vicent “Sento” Llobell Bisbal brought the scene to the city’s center.

Surrounding bridges provide a bird’s eye view of Gulliver’s form as visitors approach the large figure at the center of the park. Slides cascade over Gulliver’s clothing, hidden steps allow quick access to multiple levels of ropes and ladders, and the curves of the rounded form provide natural climbing surfaces. Imaginative play continues inside of the 80-meter-long figure, which holds a scale model of Valencia. In this playful change of scale, children become the giants as they tower among the miniature cityscape. While creating an active experience for children, the site is also designed to highlight the power of imagery; without instruction, children intuitively imagine new possibilities and explore the many mysteries of Parque Gulliver.

Photos and drawings courtesy of Rafael Rivera and Javier Rivera

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PlayCubes Boston, MA • Richard Dattner, Architect and Playworld

116 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2016

In the mid-1960s, architect Richard Dattner contributed to some of the most original American playgrounds of the postwar period. His designs departed from the common urban formula for play and focused on challenging children’s creativity. Through emphasizing child-directed play, Dattner encouraged designers to imagine play in different shapes, forms, and materials.

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A boy climbs across the PlayCubes in Boston’s Chinatown Park.

118 • Design & Play

PlayCubes™ & the Creative Playground Movement

By Missy Benson, Play Advocate, Playworld and Richard Dattner, FAIA, Principal, Dattner Architects Images and illustrations courtesy of Richard Dattner and Playworld

Pop-Up PlayCubes Missy Benson It’s a beautiful day in Boston’s Chinatown Park, a small parcel at the south end of the a series of parks created by the city’s Big Dig project and called the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Designed by Carol R. Johnson Associates, Chinatown Park contains the iconic Chinatown Gate, which both towers over a flurry of commuter and tourist activity and provides a gateway into this culturally rich community.

There’s a group practicing Tai Chi and pairs of residents playing chess on outdoor tables. There’s also a new addition to the park, the first installation of the new Dattner PlayCubes. The installation is formed by the modular combination of cuboctahedra, polyhedra with eight triangular faces and six square faces. Each face has a circular cutout so kids can climb on top and get inside. Children playing on the structure are a new sight in Chinatown Park—this is the first playground installation on the Greenway—and the group of children having their imaginative adventures in this urban space warms my heart.

One of the greatest joys in my 30 years of designing play spaces was seeing architects, landscape architects, engineers, industrial designers, and planners all working together to create the pop-up PlayCubes playground in Chinatown Park in the Spring of 2016. All of us at Playworld were thrilled to partner with Design Museum Foundation to create the Extraordinary Playscapes exhibition and take it beyond the gallery walls to make a positive impact in the city.

At Playworld, we believe in a strong community process; it’s vital for the success of any playscape project and can sometimes take three to five years to complete.

In Boston, we had a matter of months to plan the project so that the new installation could complement the Extraordinary Playscapes exhibition. Fortunately, we found a willing partner in the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. Our outreach was well timed, as they were implementing a park-wide play strategy that included hiring a play coordinator and planning regular activities

to focus on the educational benefits of unstructured play. Together with the teams at Playworld, Design Museum Foundation, the Greenway, and Playworld representative and installation partner UltiPlay, we planned and executed a five-month temporary installation of PlayCubes to demonstrate the power of design and play have to change people’s lives.

I was first exposed to PlayCubes through a Playworld visit to architect Richard Dattner’s office in New York City.

In the mid-1960s, Dattner contributed to some of the most original American playgrounds in the postwar period.

His designs departed from the common urban formula

for play and focused on challenging children’s creativity.

Through emphasizing child-directed play, Dattner encouraged designers to imagine play in different shapes, forms, and materials. Viewing the standard “asphalt deserts,” punctuated by metal swings, slides, and seesaws as a hostile environment for play, Dattner regarded playgrounds as experiences rather than a number of discrete objects planted in pavement. His 1969 book, Design for Play, changed the way people think about play.

Who better to learn about the history of PlayCubes than from the creator himself?

119

PlayCubes Development Richard Dattner

The history of the creative playground movement in the United States and the creation of PlayCubes generally parallel each other. Both began in the 1960s with a number of developments that brought playground design to the attention of a new generation of designers and parents. A movement toward adventure playgrounds in post-war Europe was based on the discovery that children liked playing with the rubble and cast off materials proliferating on many sites. Lady Allen of Hurtwood in England and C.T. Sorensen in Denmark noticed that children preferred to play in junkyards and building sites rather than in the playgrounds set up for their use.

In the United States, architect Louis Kahn and sculptor Isamu Noguchi were collaborating on the never-realized Strauss Playground in New York’s Riverside Park. Consisting of mounds with slides, hills, valleys, and concrete walls, their design proposed a kind of moonscape of abstract land-forms. Landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg’s play environment at New York’s Riis Houses, consisting of Belgian Block mounds and heavy timber climbing structures, was seen as a realized continuation of the Kahn/Noguchi concept.

In 1966, the Estee and Joseph Lauder Foundation commissioned me to redesign one of the 20 playgrounds Robert Moses had built around the edges of Central Park in the 1930s. These original playgrounds were typical of the 800 others built around New York at that time: sterile asphalt or concrete areas with seesaws, steel slides, and pipe-frame monkey bars. The seesaws were hazardous, the slides high and scary, and the monkey bars allowed for falls onto the unforgiving pavements. A water spray and small sand box were the only soft features humanizing these forlorn and dangerous environments.

The Adventure Playground project on the west side of Central Park began some eight years before the actual construction commenced. Some mothers at the asphalt playground then occupying the site noticed the bulldozers preparing to raze the playground so a parking lot could be built to serve an adjoining restaurant.

Running home for reinforcements, and returning in force with baby carriages to block the planned demolition, they managed to have that project stopped. A few years later, after a child playing on a slide was badly hurt in a fall, three mothers decided something had to be done to prevent future accidents. They petitioned the parks commissioner for rubber safety surfacing under the equipment and adequate, regular maintenance. Their requests were initially futile, but then they organized a Sunday event in the playground where volunteer parents picked up three bushels full of glass fragments from the ground. The election of Mayor John Lindsay and the naming of Tom Hoving as parks commissioner 120 • Design & Play

ushered in the new era of public parks and playgrounds in New York City.

This “mother’s movement” had wide-ranging influence on public involvement in civic construction, as well as a transformational effect on those involved.

Some of these original young mothers went on to become a future NYC deputy mayor, a renowned writer on public education, the head of an affordable housing developer, and a New York State Parks commissioner.

The work of these local parents attracted the Lauder Foundation, which offered to fund the construction of the playground if the community partly matched their contribution by raising funds for a full-time, trained play supervisor. This agreement brought the community together in a common task that would ultimately involve thousands of people and continually remind them that their efforts were vital in ensuring the success of the Adventure Playground. A series of meetings with these local residents, and their kids, resulted in a number of suggestions, which led to sketches and a clay model.

The Adventure Playground opened to enthusiastic local acceptance and public acclaim, with wide national and international publication. I went on to design six additional playgrounds in Central Park, and others in Long Island, Detroit, Yonkers, Oklahoma, and Israel.

With the publication of Design for Play in 1969, I became, for a time, a playground expert speaking about designing for children to many groups. An important component of the Adventure Playground was the provision of objects I designed that kids could use

to create their own structures: play panels, blocks of various sizes, a wheelbarrow, easels, paper, and paints.

These were stored inside a hollow climbing pyramid, distributed daily, and overseen by a play leader—an idea based on successful European examples.

Design Goals for Creative Playgrounds The Adventure Playground, and the work of Paul Friedberg and others, revised mainstream perceptions of public playgrounds. Rather than isolated pieces of often dangerous equipment on an unyielding asphalt or concrete surface, creative playgrounds created linked landscapes of varied forms over and around areas of soft surfacing or sand. Rather than static pieces asking kids to use them as-designed—steel pipe fire engines, faux rocket ships, etc.—creative playgrounds allowed children to impose their own imagined forms and uses on an abstract armature.

The two overarching goals of creative play are the provision of a wide range of sensory experiences and the ability to give kids the most feasible and safe control over that experience. The first goal calls for varied materials: sand, water, wood, stones, concrete, etc., and a large variety of possible activities: climbing, sliding, jumping, balancing, exploring, hiding, looking, waiting, etc. The second goal aims for kids to join or decline any activity, decide how far to go, choose group or solitary activity, imagine their own uses and meanings, and otherwise control and shape their environment.

Two patent drawings: Dattner (left) and Noguchi (right), both polyhedra designs for modular playscapes

Solid Geometry The funding for creative playgrounds was limited. The need was obviously enormous. I often found myself thinking how this conflict might be reconciled. My interest in modular design had been sparked at MIT by the work of Buckminster Fuller, who was exploring polyhedra as an efficient and universal building block for structures and geodesic domes. These solid forms— pyramids, cubes, and spheres—had been discovered by Greek mathematicians and more recently were found to be the basis for the organization of atoms and much of our natural environment. Fuller was fascinated by the stacking qualities of polyhedra, which allowed them to expand infinitely in space utilizing a minimum of material.

In 1969, inspired by the work of Buckminster Fuller, both Isamu Noguchi and I filed separate patents for polyhedra designs adapted for children’s play. The Noguchi units were eight-sided truncated concrete tetrahedrons with a hollow spherical interior, and my PlayCubes were 14-sided hollow, fiberglass cuboctahedrons with openings on six sides. Although the Noguchi units were ultimately not successful as play equipment, they became stunning sculptures, now shown in several museums.

The First PlayCubes PlayCubes were my attempt to provide some of the benefits of the Adventure Playground in a less expensive version. They would be easy to construct, flexible enough to fit any site, and require no elaborate foundations. The first full-size cardboard mock-ups were built by my students at Cooper Union, and I began a search for a manufacturer and distributor. The early history of PlayCubes would eventually involve three companies and three manufacturers in both the U.S. and the U. K. Manufacturing and distribution began in 1969 to a large, receptive audience—installations in New York and the U.K. were widely featured in architectural, landscape, and news publications. I received the patent for PlayCubes in 1970. Industrial Design Magazine selected PlayCubes for their 1969 design review and special exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The units were dubbed “The Instant Playground,” and Scott Products, makers of paper towels, toilet tissue, and napkins, ran a promotion offering PlayCubes to communities collecting sufficient coupons from Scott product purchases.

PlayCubes became widely successful as play environments in the early 1970s, ultimately extending beyond the U.S. and U.K. to Japan, Israel, and Greece.

Unfortunately, PlayCubes gradually ceased production as the cost of fiberglass rose and hand production became increasingly costly. Some PlayCubes could be seen around the U.S. as late as 2009, a testament to their PlayCubes & the Creative Playground Movement • 121

robustness. The last known publicly installed PlayCubes were disassembled at a San Francisco park and taken to a commune, where they still exist!

Safety First In 1981 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission published their first Handbook for Public Playground Safety, a two-volume set of requirements and standards for safe playgrounds. The publication of these standards had a huge impact on playground design, resulting in the gradual elimination of some of the equipment many adults at the time grew up with. For example, New York City has only one remaining wooden seesaw, now slated for removal.

Among the major improvements resulting from these standards were the requirement for soft safety surfacing under all climbing equipment, safe areas around equipment, slides with transition areas that require kids to sit before sliding, and many others. Sharp edges were prohibited, as were openings where children could become stuck or trapped. The development of Federal standards went a long way toward reducing the numerous lawsuits for playground injuries as designers

now had a clear standard to comply with. Despite this welcome outcome, lawsuits had a dampening effect on playground design, with many of the creative features and building materials being eliminated to comply with the Handbook.

The New PlayCubes The story of the new, improved PlayCubes, developed in collaboration with the designers and engineers at Playworld, reflects many of the current advances in computer-aided design, three-dimensional prototyping, and robotic manufacturing. The present units were digitally designed and prototyped, kid-tested on fullsize, CNC-milled plywood mock-ups, and are being manufactured in automated rotational molds. Their size was increased, allowing for eight additional openings to make the units more open and better to play in and on. Kids love them, and they are now large enough for adults to climb on, in, and through. As Missy mentions, the collaboration of many partners brought the first installation of these new PlayCubes to life in Boston’s Chinatown Park. They are now being installed around the world.

Observations Missy Benson An important part of my job as a play advocate is being able to spend many hours during different seasons and times of day observing play and use patterns at the PlayCubes in Chinatown Park. The most welcome sign of creative play is that children young and old use the PlayCubes to develop their own adventures on this open-ended, non-prescribed play structure. For some kids it’s a challenging climbing course, for others it’s a ship on the high seas. I observed children who were free to explore the space and play socially with other kids for long periods of time, and one young girl I observed had set up a pretend lemonade stand inside one of the cuboctahedrons and was regularly serving customers.

Research shows that this kind of make-believe play is essential for children to develop creative thinking skills.

I found the PlayCubes also serve a community placemaking function. By attracting families from both Chinatown and the nearby Leather District, the installation brought two otherwise separate communities together. A local mom told me, “I’m so happy to have the playground here–it is bringing the

“

The PlayCubes activate the area and serve as a bridge between the neighborhoods.”

122 • Design & Play

Chinatown and Leather District neighborhoods together and gives the kids something to do after school. It is a really positive thing to have in the area.” I heard from many families that a promised visit to the PlayCubes on the way to school was a wonderful way to get their kids out of bed in the morning.

As our five month exhibition came to a close, all three partners—Playworld, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, and Design Museum Foundation— reflected on the impact of PlayCubes and the tremendous response the installation received from the community.

Before the pop-up PlayCubes were scheduled to be removed, the Greenway created a bilingual survey to ask residents if the they should remain, since there was such an increase in people using the space. The results were incredible—94% of survey respondents overwhelmingly asked for the PlayCubes to remain in Chinatown Park!

The survey responses really speak to the impact such an innovative play structure can have on individual families and a community. Here are a few: “The PlayCubes have been a fantastic addition to Chinatown Park. I am a parent of two little girls who have spent their entire lives playing in this park, and we hope that this structure can be maintained and even expanded in the future. We are also very grateful for the kind volunteers who set up the playtime activities in the park. Thank you!”

“Versatility for play, but also visually appealing. At a distance they look like a sculpture rather than a play structure. They are suitable for a wider age range than most Boston playgrounds… My kids discovered PlayCubes at the Design Museum exhibit. There was a cube in the exhibit and they were interested in experiencing the larger structure.”

“They are very safe and the children invent creative games on them. It helps them mingle with others and learn how to work together.”

“Every time I walk by the structure, I see children playing on it, residents and non-residents. Chinatown has play options for children, and this is a valuable addition. It brings families out of their homes to meet each other.”

“The PlayCubes activate the area and serve as a bridge between the neighborhoods.”

Jesse Brackenbury, Greenway Conservancy Executive Director said, “We are delighted the Conservancy was able to work with the community to find a solution that keeps the popular children’s play structure in the park.” “The Conservancy made a concerted effort in

2016 to expand our family-focused play offerings and the PlayCubes have become a major component in that plan. We particularly thank Playworld, for their partnership in this important initiative, to ensure the families of Chinatown, the Leather District, and beyond have this dynamic play space available to them on an on-going basis.”

“The PlayCubes installation demonstrates the power of design to transform communities through creativity and innovation,” said Sam Aquillano, Executive Director of Design Museum Foundation. “I’m so excited the Greenway Conservancy is extending their stay in Chinatown Park as a permanent play installation for Boston.”

Fredrick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture, wanted to create parks for healing–for all people living in the city. We live in a world today divided by politics and a lack of civil discourse. As landscape architects, architects, and planners, we can partner with other experts to demonstrate that good design can activate public space for life-long learning through play. The Chinatown PlayCubes case study serves as a prime example of how pop-up, temporary installations can inspire communities and encourage civic leaders to activate public space with design and play. •

PlayCubes & the Creative Playground Movement • 123

Pop-Up Adventure Playgrounds Pop-Up Adventure Play

124 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2010

Inspired by junk and adventure playgrounds, PopUp Adventure Playgrounds creates pop-up style play experiences, flipping the conventional model of playgrounds and straying away from fixed and expensive sites. The organized playground builds are free, public celebrations of child-directed play, stocked with loose parts such as cardboard boxes, fabric, tape, and string. The organization applies principles from the U.K.-based field of playwork, and demonstrates that any location can be improved for play.

The Pop-Up Adventure Play model supports the notion that children’s play is rich and diverse, encompassing a child’s need to explore and create—and even smash and destroy—with full control over their experience.

Children and their families build houses out of cardboard boxes, hang “washing” on yarn strung between trees, construct suits of armor from bubble wrap, and invent complex games using long tubes and cat toys at the open events. Children lead the cycle of their play, from concept to construction, including repurposing and even demolition. Held by and for local communities, the events also provide a short overview of essential playwork practices and tips to engage parents and community members.

Pop-Up Adventure Playgrounds lets children claim their right to public spaces, where they forge strong social relationships within their local community and explore the furthest reaches of their imaginations.

They introduce issues of freedom and risk in the most accessible, inclusive, and celebratory ways. Using cheap or free materials and emphasizing the support from local adults means that any community can empower itself to improve opportunities for playing locally.

Hundreds of these events have been held in 17 countries around the world so far, reaching tens of thousands of people in communities across the socio-economic specturum.

Photos courtesy of Pop-Up Adventure Play

Extraordinary Playscapes • 125

Pulse Park Ry, Denmark • CEBRA

126 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2012

Pulse Park is a themed and experience-based addition to an existing network of outdoor paths and public spaces in Denmark. The park consists of three accessible, inclusive, and innovative zones, each focused on a different type of activity. The park encourages running, biking, active play, and relaxation, all within one cohesive design.

Kildebjerg, Ry is a development area in central Denmark that forms a unique residential and business district.

Recent studies show that Danes’ exercise habits are shifting toward more self-organized sports and outdoor activities, and people are increasingly demanding flexible and integrated public spaces. To meet these demands, Dutch architecture firm CEBRA’s design combines a range of different elements and activities that integrate urban space and natural landscape, high and low levels of activity, business and leisure, organized and unorganized activities, and play and health.

The park’s development was based on a user-involvement process that included residents, clubs, and companies from Ry who helped shape the vision for each zone. The Pulse Zone—made up of asphalt tracks surrounded by a series of circular bowls—provides training spaces for runners and bikers of all levels. The Play Zone is made up of three concentric circles and invites free play and exercise; tree-like elements and obstacle courses provide areas for climbing and play while the rest of the zone offers additional training devices and areas for social activities. The Zen Zone focuses on relaxation and activating all five senses; the quiet green environment is located on an artificial island, shielded by trellises.

Different types of plants surround the lake and island structure, creating changes in sensory perceptions as visitors move through the zone.

The design’s overall aim was to create optimal conditions for physical activity and play, and to create a cohesive relationship between the landscape, leisure activities, and the surrounding residential area.

Photos and drawings courtesy of Mikkel Frost / CEBRA

Extraordinary Playscapes • 127

Rainbow Nest Hokkaido, Japan Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam and Interplay Design & Manufacturing Inc. 128 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2000

Artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam specializes in creating large, interactive textile environments that function as imaginative explorations of color and form as well as thrilling play experiences. Her sculptural playground in Hokkaido encouraged children to challenge themselves and assess risk; with many routes and options, there was no predetermined program of play while climbing, swinging, and jumping throughout the whimsical environment.

Set in a giant dome partly submerged underground at the Takino Suzuran Hillside National Park, the space aimed to introduce children who were typically in cramped quarters to the pleasures of playing in nature. Produced in close collaboration with structural engineers TIS & Partners and Takano Landscape Planning, the playground was open from 2000-2010 after three years of planning, testing, and building.

With only 13 months to complete the project, MacAdam, along with her husband and partner at Interplay Design, Charles MacAdam, created a scale replica of the space using wood and nets of fine cotton thread. They used the model to asses the engineering requirements, scale, weight, and installation process. The finished piece required one ton of DuPont Nylon 6-6, a yarn that had been specially prepared into knitted “stockings.”

Once dyed, the stockings were wound onto bobbins, then plied and braided together. MacAdam handcrocheted 90% of the piece using a simple wooden hook in workdays that lasted up to ten hours. Three large sections were then air freighted to Hokkaido, where MacAdam joined the material together to finish the piece. The site’s crocheted cushions also doubled as “play cushions” for smaller children or those with mobility challenges, adding to the adventurous and free-form play environment.

Drawing courtesy of Toshiko/Interplay

Photos courtesy of Masaki Koizumi

Extraordinary Playscapes • 129

Schulberg Playground Wiesbaden, Germany • ANNABAU Architektur and Landschaft GmbH

130 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2011

Situated in the center of Wiesbaden, Schulberg Playground is designed as a continuous climbing loop, responding to the surrounding area by winding through existing trees and mirroring the shape of the historic city. Architecture firm ANNABAU designed the suspended climbing structure to offer play challenges for all ages. Incorporating twists and turns, climbing nets, swings, and various lookout points, the playground allows a variety of active play experiences.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 131

A suspended climbing loop makes up the main element at Schulberg Park, a previously neglected public space.

This winding structure consists of two green steel pipes that wind and float at different levels between surrounding trees. The structure’s dips, swings, rotating plates, and climbing ropes ensure challenging play that stimulates children of all ages and skill sets for extended periods of time. Within the loop are six main stopovers for play activities where kids can climb up and down the net, swing in between lanes with different levels of difficulty, and jump between rotating rubber plates.

Additional features include bouncing membranes, a tunnel, nest swing, slide, and a climbing wall.

An artificial landscape enclosed in the center of the climbing loop features several trees and small hills surrounded by sand. This creates a contained space for running and imaginative play. The wide pathway surrounding the playground includes benches for parents and onlookers to watch their children play or enjoy the stunning outlook over Wiesbaden. A rounded curb made of anthracite follows the pentagonal shape of the playground and separates it from the surrounding boulevard.

132 • Design & Play

The unique design mimics the city’s pentagonal shape, highlighting the importance of the site’s urban and historic location while offering a complex range of activities and games.

Photos and drawing courtesy of ANNABAU

Extraordinary Playscapes • 133

Smale Riverfront Park Playscape Cincinnati, OH • Sasaki Associates

134 • Design & Play

1979

2017 2015

John G. and Phyllis W. Smale Riverfront Park blurs the traditional boundaries between park and playground; no fences separate the park zones and visitors can enter the spaces fluidly from all directions. Play spills out into nearby lawns, paths, and the flexible area beneath the bridge abutment where children can engage in selfdirected and group play.

Extraordinary Playscapes • 135

A young explorer traverses the stump steps at Smale Riverfront Park on a sunny day in Cincinnati, OH. 136 • Design & Play

Where Design Meets Play A Research-Based Approach at Smale Riverfront Park

By Kate Tooke, Senior Associate, Landscape Architect, Sasaki Associates Images and illustrations courtesy of Sasaki Associates

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-October, the playscape at Cincinnati’s Smale Riverfront Park is alive with children and families. Screams of delight come from the slide hillside, mixing with the comfortable chatter of a group of parents watching from the bottom. From my perch at the top of the slide hill I watch a little girl launch herself down the wide slide. She hollers cheerfully as she slips sideways on the bump halfway down and careens off the end, taking a tumble before regaining her feet.

I lose sight of her momentarily as she skips around a log path behind a copse of trees and shrubs. A moment later she emerges halfway up the hillside, balancing with arms outstretched on a series of upturned logs. I feel her brush past me as she gets to the top, arms still out wide and making a whooshing noise, as though she is imagining herself a bird. She pauses at the top of a rocky outcrop, just as an older boy runs past and takes a flying leap off the rocks, with a friend in hot pursuit. For a moment she looks back at me, a question in her eyes, and then turns to jump herself, landing like a frog on hands and feet at the bottom of the valley. Her attention is immediately caught by a group of preteen girls at the base of the climbing wall. I come closer to the top of the structure to watch as she sidles up to the group.

“I can’t do it,” one girl is saying while the others offer encouragement and advice on where to put her feet and hands. “Watch me!” the littlest girl exclaims, and begins to climb, stretching her body into its longest forms flat against the wall. At the top she turns and flashes me a big smile, eyes shining. “Mama,” she shouts, “come do the rope bridge with me!” I put my clipboard down and run after her because this weekend I am splitting my time between researching and parenting.

My daughter, Tessa, and I are in Cincinnati with a team of designers to conduct a post-occupancy evaluation of the new playscape at the Smale Riverfront Park. The park sits on the banks of the Ohio River in a district dominated by sports venues, between the Paul Brown Stadium and the Great American Ball Park. But these families didn’t come downtown to root for the home team, they are here specifically to play outside. It’s not that Cincinnati has any deficit of playgrounds: in fact, the

Trust for Public Land ranks it number two in the nation when it comes to playgrounds per capita.1 But in the brief six months since this playscape opened, it has become a major destination for the region’s families. Throughout the summer the park teemed with children. A park maintenance staffer said some parts of the park had “at least one child per square foot” on hot July Saturdays.

In part, the park is so popular because it is so different. Here, instead of the standard plastic post-andplatform structures of a typical American playground, climbing walls, boulders, bridges, logs and slide hillsides await curious kids. It’s a place that seems a bit wild and a little risky, a place where the unexpected can happen.

One mother told me that her son is quickly bored at other playgrounds, but “here [at Smale] we can spend hours, and he never wants to leave.” Another said, “this is the best place to play anywhere near Cincinnati–my kids can actually run, climb, jump, get wet, play a giant foot piano, and freely raise their voices here. There’s enough challenge

result. A recent study in the Journal of Pediatrics found that when children are bored by “safe” play equipment, they are less likely to be physically active, and therefore more prone to obesity.2 There are intellectual and emotional effects too. A lack of free play opportunities is responsible for a generation of children who are less imaginative, creative, and expressive, according to Kyung-Hee Kim, an educational psychologist at the College of William and Mary and the author of the 2011 paper The Creativity Crisis.3 Ellen Sandsetter, a Norwegian psychologist and author of Children’s Risky Play from an Evolutionary Perspective writes that protecting children on “safe” playgrounds results in “more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.”4 The list of ills is extensive, so why have modern playgrounds ended up this way?

Today’s “McDonald’s model” playgrounds have been shaped largely by risk aversion within a litigious culture as well as overzealous safety guidelines meant to

It’s a place that seems a bit wild and a little risky, a place where the unexpected can happen. that they can feel proud of themselves and enough variety that we’ll keep coming back again and again.”

The refreshing change of pace that these visitors experienced at Smale is part of a nationwide movement to re-invigorate outdoor play spaces.

Susan Solomon, author of American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space, describes today’s default playground as “the McDonald’s model”–a garishly-colored and unimaginative collection of posts, platforms, tunnels, and slides stamped uniformly across the country. “Things like taking risks, learning to fail, learning to master something, to plan ahead, to develop deep friendships–none of those could take place at most playgrounds today,” Solomon says. Children are suffering physically, mentally, and emotionally as a

appease these fears. A series of high profile playground injuries and lawsuits in the late 1970s gave rise to the first Handbook for Public Playground Safety, published by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1981. Over the following two decades, cities removed “dangerous” play equipment from parks, schools and other public places and replaced it with structures and surfacing deemed “safe.” Yet, there is little evidence to support the efficacy of this focus on safety; in fact, emergency room visits due to playground injuries have remained steady since 1982.5 David Ball, a professor of risk management at Middlesex University in the U.K. is uncovering statistics that broken bones may actually be on the rise due to a phenomenon he calls “risk compensation.” Kids aren’t as careful because play 137

Before equipment and surfacing seem so safe that they end up hurting themselves more often.

Over the past decade, a groundswell of play advocates including parents, teachers, and designers has begun arguing that a reasonable level of risk in play is essential to children’s healthy development.

Play scholarship uses the term risk as a shorthand for environments and activities that challenge children’s physical coordination, social skills, creative imagination, and other desirable qualities. A 2015 study led by Sandsetter found that environments supportive of risky (challenging and exciting) play promoted physical activity, social interactions, creativity, and resiliency among children, and argued that the overall positive effects of increased risky play provide a greater benefit than the possible negative consequences of injury.6 A recent popular article in The Atlantic titled “The Overprotected Kid” highlighted a junkyard-style playground in North Wales called The Land where children light fires and use saws and hammers to build whatever strikes their fancy.5 While this represents one extreme, the pendulum is slowly swinging back from the bland environs of safety towards the thrill of risk. And that shift means that cities increasingly eschew off-the-shelf playgrounds, instead engaging designers in the creation of custom play environments that are contextual, place-specific, and creative in their interpretation of the safety guidelines to open up a sense of adventure, healthy risk and challenge. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates’ Teardrop Park in New York City was among the first visible American examples of a new playground model. The playscapes at Smale Riverfront Park have put Cincinnati on the map of what an innovative landscape of play can look like in 21st century America.

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After

The Backstory The making of the Smale Riverfront Park is a story of transformation that spans several decades. Back in the mid 1990s, most of the site was a brownfield along the banks of the Ohio River. Like so many post-industrial riverfronts across the U.S., it was covered with parking lots and vacant industrial parcels that flooded regularly.

The old Riverfront Stadium, a multipurpose field which had been home to both the Cincinnati Reds and Bengals since 1970 occupied the parcel to the east of the Roebling Bridge and was in disrepair. Mehring Way, a four lane highway, ran along the riverbank, divorcing the city from the water. Vacancy rates in the surrounding areas were among the highest in the city.

In the late 1990s, the city initiated a masterplan process for the district. Over a two year period, an extensive public and private input process identified and vetted key priorities. The final plan, approved in 1999, included several bold ideas: first, move Mehring Way away from the banks of the river to create room for a 14-acre park in the floodplain; second, construct new baseball and football stadiums to anchor the parkland on either side and provide an economic engine for the area; third, develop the area north of Mehring Way raised above the floodplain with floodable parking underneath. The entire plan encompassed more than 32 acres of riverfront.

Sasaki’s role in the riverfront’s transformation began in 1999 when it was selected to develop concept plans for the park areas identified in the Master Plan.

A team of landscape architects, urban planners, and engineers conceived a multiphase approach that would begin by making room for the park. By 2004, the Great American Ball Park had been moved east and the Paul Brown football stadium had been constructed to the west. Mehring Way moved north in 2010, in conjunction

with construction of an event lawn, fountains, stairs, and brewery. Resiliency to flooding was designed into every detail of these areas, and the work required an in-depth permitting process with the Army Corps of Engineers.

The park’s dedicated playscapes–the Heekin Family Grow Up Great Adventure Playscape and the P&G goVibrantscape–are both sited within the floodplain and opened together in the late spring of 2015. Collectively, they blur the traditional boundaries between park and playground; there are no fences separating the zones from each other or from the rest of the park. Instead, children and families enter the spaces fluidly from all directions, and play spills out into nearby lawns, paths, and the flexible area beneath the bridge abutment.

In addition, the park as a whole is a destination for families, including attractions like Carol Ann’s Carousel, fountains, and a labyrinth, as well as places to picnic, rent bikes, swing, or sit by the river. Many families we interviewed in October described coming to the area for a whole day of outdoor adventure and exploration.

Today, two decades after the design process began, the playscapes seem like they were always meant to be.

Designing the Playscapes In 1999, the park’s masterplan had called generally for some kind of children’s playground to be included on the lower level by the river, but gave no specifics regarding placement or typology. As the design team and Park Board began the design process, we considered everything from standard playground equipment to simple sloped lawns. But bold ideas about creating a new breed of imaginative and active play space captured the whole team early in the process. By 2013, when the design began in earnest, there was consensus that the playgrounds would set a new standard.

“We wanted a place of adventure and challenge, not a typical space composed of off-the-shelf components,” says Steven Schuckman, Superintendent of Planning and Design for Cincinnati Parks. The goal, he says, was to create a playground “as unique and grounded in the site and its history as is the rest of the park.”

At the same time, three important private funding sources stepped forward: The Heekin Family, PNC Bank, and Proctor & Gamble. The Heekin Family along with PNC Bank donated generously towards a playground that would inspire and challenge Cincinnati’s children to be physically active. Proctor & Gamble’s charitable foundation offered a grant to create a playful, interactive space that would engage children and families together in explorations of cause and effect, promoting physical exercise in a fun way. The support of the Park Board to create an adventure-style playscape, aligned with the goals of the funders, and formed a strong foundation for conceptual design.

Early sketches and studies of the PNC/Heekin Adventure Playscape drew inspiration from the cultural and environmental history of the site. The story of the Ohio River–from its geologic beginnings and its role in settlement and industry to its seasonal flooding patterns–captivated the design team and grounded the design. A valley emerged as a central organizing element, reminiscent of the way the river has carved the landscape over time. Two bridges over the valley evoke the rhythm of the river’s many crossings, especially the historic

Roebling suspension bridge which bisects the Smale Riverfront Park on its way to Kentucky. The log climbing feature drew upon the log jams common during flooding events. Likewise, the materiality of the playscape drew heavily from the local area. The rock outcrops are built from large pieces of local sandstone, which also make up the abutments of the adjacent Roebling Bridge, while most of the wood features throughout the playscape are a rot-resistant native locust tree sourced from downed trees in other Cincinnati public parks.

A research-based process helped inform the layout and specific features of the PNC/Heekin Adventure Playscape. The design responded to six categories of risky play, as defined by Sandsetter: fast motion, unsupervised & exploration, natural elements, great heights, rough & tumble, and using tools.8 Elements like the slide, climbing walls, and bridges were designed specifically to help kids achieve feelings of great heights and rapid speeds, while small nooks in the rock outcrops and winding paths capture a sense of mystery and the feeling that one could disappear. Most of the elements incorporate some sense of danger–a foot could fall through the mesh of the rope bridge, a hand could slip at the top of the climbing wall–without actually being dangerous. Teri Hendy, a play consultant who specializes in alternative play environments, worked with the design team to ensure that each of the customdesigned features met all the standards of the Public Playground Safety Handbook.

Although a definite focus of the PNC/Heekin Adventure playscape is to provide a physical outlet and challenge for children, the design team sought to incorporate other types of play. Sara Smilanski, a renowned Israeli child psychologist who trained with Jean Piaget, developed a widely-accepted theory in the late 1960s about four types of play that contribute to children’s learning and development. They are: (1) functional play involving physical and gross-motor activities; (2) constructive play including building and creating; (3) dramatic play that engages imagination and role playing; and (4) games with rules. Our early design conversations focused particularly on how to incorporate dramatic and constructive play into such an active and physical space. The fog misters at the northern amphitheater are cooling in the summer but intend to evoke a sense of mystery that might spark imaginative activities. We worked with a local artist to embed fossil-carved stones into the rock outcrops to promote a sense of discovery and wonderment.

Incorporating constructive play into the playscape proved to be the most difficult. Nationwide, constructive play environments that include loose parts for manipulation like sand, water, or blocks tend to be challenged in urban parks. Municipalities cite concerns over maintenance costs and keeping playgrounds looking “neat,” while citizens express fears over safety and what can be hidden in sand. At Smale, the large sloping lawn that today occupies the area north of the valley was, for most of the design process, conceived of as a sand and water play zone, where children could freely manipulate the environment to create whatever struck their fancy, from castles and sculptures to rivers and dams, or even bakery delights. In the end, local concerns regarding keeping public sand boxes clean and safe for children won out, and the sand area was eliminated.

At the same time, the design process for the P&G goVibrantscape was just beginning, and early concepts immediately hit on providing a place for children to manipulate water without sand. The water play map, which allows children to pump, dam, and channel water to flood a miniature granite-relief version of the park, grew out of an intensive process with Richter Spielgerate, a German manufacturer of alternative playground equipment, to identify the maximum interactive play value and layout of elements. We traded sketches back and forth for months as the design grew from a simple water basin and runnel into an engineer’s paradise. The miniature map of the city took shape first as a digital model, then as a full scale mockup in our office and was ultimately CNC milled by Coldspring Granite.

Richter also helped to customize their signature Ornithopter play element into what we like to call the “Oink-i-thopter.” Cincinnati, known to some as “Porkopolis” has long embraced the flying pig as its mascot, a symbol that evokes both the city’s commercial and Where Design Meets Play • 139

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industrial roots as well as its aspirations and sense of humor. The flying pig establishes a sense of place while engaging many children and families to create movement together. Children and adults climb up a ladder into the pig while friends and family pull on ropes that flap the pig’s wings and give those inside a ride.

The Impact The two playscapes opened within a few weeks of each other in the late spring of 2015. It was immediately clear that they were a hit. We heard from local contacts that the features were “standing room only” and “crawling with kids,” and social media channels were alive with positive feedback. As excitement about the playscapes built over the course of the summer, Sasaki became interested in understanding and learning from this project. We wanted to explore how children and families use the playscapes–how they travel through them, what features captivate attention most, and what kinds of play activities they inspire. We were also curious about how the park was performing from a maintenance and safety perspective. And so, supported by an internal Sasaki research grant, our team began a rich exploration of contemporary play at Smale Riverfront Park.

Our research team–three landscape architects and one intrepid four-year old research assistant–traveled to Cincinnati to collect data on a sunny weekend in

mid-October. Armed with clipboards, cameras, and copious data collection sheets, we logged more than 45 observation hours in the park and conducted more than 100 interviews. Our chief methods included four activities: counting, tracking, listening, and interviewing.

Every 30 minutes throughout the weekend, we conducted a full count of the people in the playscapes, capturing where children, adults, teens, strollers, and dogs were distributed. Tracking consisted of mapping one child’s journey for 10 minutes, noting his or her complete path through the playscape and observing key moments. We tracked two to three times every 30 minutes. We conducted interviews with both visitors and stakeholders, including key park maintenance, staff, and leadership. Key to our qualitative data was intensive listening; we sat in each play zone for 10 minutes at a time and wrote down all comments and conversations.

We joke that, in retrospect, listening was the creepiest part of the research effort, but it yielded excellent insights about types of play occurring in each zone.

Beyond these formal methods, which generated mountains of excellent quantitative and qualitative data, the experience of spending an entire weekend immersed in the park was transformative. Subtle changes in sunlight, wind, and temperature over the course of a day gave us ever-changing new perspectives on the park. Swells and ebbs of background noises like voices, footfalls, laughter, traffic, and riverboats produced a

constant hum of activity. As countless families arrived, played, and departed we spent time watching and occasionally joining in the play. We shared the joy and pride of first ascents up the climbing wall, the laughter of families riding in the flying pig for the first time, and the momentary tragedies of skinned knees and elbows.

We returned to Boston with a substantial amount of data. As we comb through it, we keep making new discoveries, but four key trends have emerged. First, the playscapes at Smale have a high level of intergenerational integration. At most standard playgrounds, there is a simple pattern: children play on the plastic structure while parents mill about on the outskirts. Conversely, at Smale the densities of children and adults are relatively even across all play zones. Adults don’t just watch children on the flying pig, they climb up for a ride themselves or help pull on the wings to create the flying motion. At the climbing walls and log climbing feature, adults both spot children and try out the holds themselves. One father told us, “[This park] is fun and challenging, so different than our neighborhood tot lot…I can’t help but join in the playing!” The perception of risk also makes many parents stick more closely to their children than usual. At times, children ask for help with a difficult move, and at other times parents nervously hover, telling children to be careful.

Second, design layout has a strong effect on patterns of movement. The PNC/Heekin adventure playscape, on the east side of the bridge, is designed as one fluid playscape, with different elements linked together in a similar way to a climbing structure. Children move in fast, iterative, and looping paths here. Parents travel loosely with their kids, but also stop to watch at times from key vantage points, like the bottom and top of the slides or the ends of the valley. The P&G goVibrantscape, on the west side of the bridge, is laid out as separate play “rooms” arranged along the central spine of the historic Water Street. Parents and children travel in family groups from room to room, rarely returning to a room after leaving it. The marked difference between movement patterns on the east and the west speaks to the rise of the continuous play concepts in the 1980s.

Early playgrounds tended to be object focused: a swing, a see-saw, a ladder, and slide element all placed separately on a flat plane. Continuous play, credited to Steve King of Landscape Structures, captures the idea of linking play moments together into a fluid experience.

From the pinnacle of one feature you can always see another adventure. This thinking gave rise to the kind of conglomerate play structure so familiar on today’s standard playgrounds, but is also useful in designing custom playscapes that keep children running from one exciting experience to the next.

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Third, despite design considerations and operational measures in place, some kids use the playscape in unintended ways. On standard playgrounds, it’s common to see kids climbing backwards up the slides, monkeying around to the outside of high guardrails and swinging from the tops of shade trellises. Some children are hard-wired to make their own challenge, even if that appears dangerous or undesirable to adults. This holds for Smale, where children who want to be creative have plenty of opportunities for upping the ante, despite the fact that the custom playscape meets all safety standards.

One group of boys used the Heekin playscape as a parkour training ground, doing back flips off the rocks, frog-leaps over the climbing logs, and vigorous swinging on the rope bridge. Children use the sloped concrete next to the slides as much as the slides themselves, and climb to the very top of the pig rather than just inside the cockpit. Instead of just working together to get the balancing disc level, some groups play a game where one person spins the disc in an attempt to get others to lose their balance and fly off. Although these behaviors could be regarded as simply dangerous, they are also markers of creativity and innovation and are an important part of children claiming the space as their own.

Finally, constructive play in the playscape is just as valuable as challenging physical activity. The new generation of adventure playgrounds like Heekin excel at inspiring physical activity, a sense of risk, and the feelings of pride that go along with accomplishing a

difficult challenge. Our play typology mapping of the Smale playscapes revealed active physical play occurring across the entire playscape. But constructive play, where children are experimenting and making discoveries is essentially isolated to the water play map. Although our data from a cool October weekend indicated only an average play density at the water map, we heard again and again from stakeholders and families how hugely popular the area is during the summer. One caregiver who runs a nearby daycare told us it was “the perfect place to get wet [and kept the kids] interested for so long.

[It was] always so crowded…I wish it were bigger.” Over the course of a weekend we witnessed countless moments of experimentation, creativity, and discovery as children pumped, dammed, diverted, released, and splashed water.

The air was full of questions like, “What happens if…?” and declarations like, “Look what I did!” One girl’s father watched her open and close spigots in a certain order and asked her what she was doing. “I’m engineering,” she told him matter-of-factly. Constructive play is critical for nurturing the kind of creative thinking currently in decline,3 and there is clearly an unmet appetite for more of it in the park.

These four big take-aways gloss over a million nuances of the post-occupancy data, but together they highlight how the park has developed a life of its own.

As designers, funders, clients, and stakeholders, we all dream big about what a park can be, but in the end it is the children, families, and community that really define

what it is. How they use the playscape, what they love and what they neglect–these are critical drivers of the park’s future, and also key learning moments for future designs. Sasaki is currently developing partnership models with a local university to continue gathering post-occupancy data throughout the coming summer.

At the same time, we are already applying thinking around layout, unintended uses, and constructive play to new playscape projects.

As the sun starts to shift behind Paul Brown stadium, casting shadows in the park, I wrap up a final interview and tuck away my clipboard. Despite the imminent dusk and the cool air, there are still families enjoying the park. Tess is over at the water play map; she has made friends with another little girl, perhaps five years old, and they have been moving water together for almost 30 minutes, a near-eternity for the preschool bracket.

I hear Tessa’s friend shout, “Are you ready?” and Tessa nods vigorously, her eyes fixed on the stainless steel channel in front of her. As the friend begins pumping water, I walk closer and see that they have placed two twigs in the channel. “Is it working?” the friend asks, and then, unable to contain herself, stops pumping and runs over to see. The three of us watch the water flood the channel, lifting the twigs and carrying them to the end, where the girls have left one rubber stopper open.

The first twig spins and dives neatly through the hole to fall on the granite map below. The second gets caught sideways and remains as the last of the water drains out.

“One boat did the waterfall, and one just did the rapids,” explains Tess, and they both laugh.

The friend bounds off to retrieve the sticks, but Tessa stays close. “Mama,” she says, leaning her head into my hip, “I’m tired.” It’s no surprise–she has been playing hard since 9:30 in the morning.

Maria Montessori, founder of the popular pedagogy that bears her name, said famously, “Play is the work of the child,” and today I believe it wholeheartedly. Tessa and her peers, numbering more than 800 that day, have explored every inch of the park. They have done many of the things we designers might have expected, and have also innovated and discovered new ways of playing in the space that we never could have imagined.

As we begin to climb the steps up to downtown Cincinnati, Tessa turns around and tugs my hand. “But can we come back tomorrow?” she asks. As it turns out, we can. This is the perfect collision between work and play for both of us. • Notes & Sources: p.170

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Terra Nova Richmond, Canada • Hapa Collaborative and City of Richmond

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1979

2017 2014

The Terra Nova Play Experience responds to concerns of an emerging “nature-deficit disorder” common among children increasingly disconnected from the natural world. Borrowing from the character of landscape, the site is a place where play provokes curiosity and stirs the imagination, where challenge and risk are embraced, not feared, and where stories of the land unfold in a variety of ways.

Located on the middle arm of the Fraser River, Terra Nova contains a myriad of landscape types, including a seashore, wetlands, a fishery, and surrounding agricultural land. Over the course of two-plus years, landscape architects, Hapa Collaborative, and the City of Richmond guided the project through an extensive, integrated design process. With a total investment of $1 million, the team began by researching play design and equipment, attending children’s workshops, performing collaborative tests, assessing Canadian Standards Association playground compliance, and studying construction reviews.

The area is organized into two zones that provide challenging play opportunities. The Homestead boasts a historical farm house and includes a 33-foot tall Tower, a 20-foot high stainless steel spiral slide, and an aerial rope walkway. The Paddock is an open play environment with tandem ziplines, giant swings, a twisting slide down a hillside, and a picnic area. The zones allow diverse play activities—toddlers can get dirty in the sand and water play area or run freely in a meadow maze; older kids can soar above the ground on 10-foot high swings or scamper up a tall treehouse. The result is a park that responds to its unique setting, its constituents, and the imperative to provide exceptional play.

The play structures are custom-designed and manufactured using sustainable practices along with framing techniques that allow for simple connections and easier wood replacement.

Photos courtesy of Hapa Collaborative & City of Richmond

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Thomas M. Menino Park Charlestown, MA • Spurr, Weston & Sampson’s Design Studio

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2017 2014

Former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino first saw the empty lot that later became his eponymous park while touring the nearby Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

He saw potential in the vacant waterfront land and imagined an inclusive play space that welcomed children and families of all abilities. With the end of the Mayor’s term fast approaching, the design, permitting, and construction of Menino Park was achieved by Spurr design studio within an unheard of time frame of just seven months. Every project phase was expedited, including a public outreach process that secured critical insight and feedback from the community. The park’s design includes two main components: an interior public park with a children’s playground and an exterior Harborwalk link that filled a nearly 600-linear-foot gap in Boston’s waterfront corridor.

The playground design represents the highest level of inclusivity and accessibility, honoring those seeking recovery at the nearby hospital, while also serving all citizens of the community. Much of the design inspiration drew from the location’s history as the Navy Yard’s first shipbuilding drydock. Drydock construction originally required the Navy Yard to expand beyond the existing pier and bulkhead line. Granite blocks that once held back seawater now form the battened walls of the park’s playground, provide seating, and form the foundation for elevated lawns and viewing decks oriented to capture the splendor of Boston’s stunning downtown skyline.

Play equipment was carefully selected to accommodate a wide range of physical movement and development, including 10 pieces of sensory equipment like drums, chimes, fractal lenses, and visual mazes, all allowing for development of perception skills. Accessible pathways and other features throughout the park work to create spaces for informal play, recreation, and social activities, where people of all ages and physical and mental abilities can thrive side by side on equal terms.

Photos and drawings courtesy of Thomas M. Menino Park

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Tumbling Bay Playground London, UK • Erect Architecture and LUC

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1979

2017 2013 Drawing by LUC

Tumbling Bay is an exciting play area embedded in London’s 2012 Olympic Park landscape. The huge expanse of play areas is designed to let kids explore and play freely in a natural environment that encourages experimentation. The structures use materials from forests near Oxford, and each nature element creates customized play opportunities for all ages and abilities.

Erect Architecture led a team of consultants to design the park’s layout, landscape, play area, café and community center. The design was developed with conceptual models, an extensive community engagement program, and design workshops with school groups. The scale, range, and challenge of the structures test the participant’s limits of courage and ability. The playground features rock pools, sand pits, tall tree houses, and wobbly bridges as well as slides, swings, and excess space to run. A sand and water play area—created by children working in groups to dam and divert water through rock pools and channels—is inspired by the pumping stations, canals, and reed beds of the site’s Victorian past.

Landscape is central to this site: the plantings and play structures “grow” out of the landforms left from the Olympics in a planting scheme that evolves from immature hazel copses to a forest of pines surrounding the main play area. As the trees get bigger and the valley gets deeper, play structures become increasingly more challenging. Pieces of trees form climbing scrambles, retaining walls, and tall nest-like dens overlooking the site. Additional natural elements create unique opportunities for play and learning: den making, river and swale water play, and a plant life-cycle garden all contribute to the immersive environment.

There is no requirement that swings must hang from a metal A-frame in London. At Tumbling Bay, swings are integrated into the design and hang from various parts of the main structure.

Photo by David Grandorge

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Vail Nests Vail, CO • Tres Birds Workshop

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1979

2017 2013

The Vail Nests at Sunbird Park were inspired by the site’s regional wilderness and surrounding bird habitats.

The curving, vintage ski-inspired ribs are constructed from various compressed wood species and treated with a non-toxic mixture of oil, wax, and tree resin. Linked with bridges, a climbing wall, slides, ladders, and a central fountain, the nesting structures and varying spatial arrangements help facilitate creative play.

The Town of Vail selected Tres Birds Workshop to design and build a playground as part of the town’s artist-commissioned park series. The process began with interviewing children ages two through 10 about their play preferences, which often included emulating animal personalities and “hot lava” jumping-style games. Made of component “rib” pieces fused together with steel, the nest shape provides individual play chambers or pods.

Vail’s chief landscape architect worked closely with Tres Birds Workshop to ensure all safety standards were met.

Made of soft, rounded shapes, the entire playground, is highly amorphous and the design is free of right angles. As an ADA compliant park, children of varying abilities can interact with the playground features and each other. The lowest elevation nest has a play shelf available at ground level for children in wheelchairs and provides access points to all other playground features.

The pods’ tapered tops reveal various wood species used such as pine, spruce, ash, Spanish cedar, and mahogany.

Use of non-toxic materials was also a main priority in building the park, and each nest is enclosed with a nontoxic steel mesh fabric.

Photos and drawing courtesy of Tres Birds Workshop

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Westmoreland Park Portland, OR GreenWorks in collaboration with Adam Kuby and Portland Parks & Rec 152 • Design & Play

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2017 2014

The playground’s loose parts provide unstructured free play where children can collect and manipulate natural materials such as sticks, pine cones, or acorns, and build forts with limbs.

After updates to the the previously outdated play area, Westmoreland Park now features a 100% custom nature-based play environment where families build their own experiences. The site is designed for kids to experiment with sand and water, climb on boulders and logs, and build forts with large sequoia branches, offering opportunities to explore natural materials and target important developmental areas for children GreenWorks landscape architects and public artist Adam Kuby collaborated with the Portland Parks & Recreation department to design and develop a theme and layout of the playscape. Funded by the City of Portland and Metro’s voter-approved 2006 Natural Areas Bond Measure, the total project cost $1,050,000.

The designers developed a sequence to the spaces that metaphorically follows the path of rainwater from the forests of the Cascades. The design also tells the story of the nearby Crystal Springs; six carved basalt columns march along a central, accessible pathway to provide a clear circulation flow and create the main organizing element through the entire area. Natural features and sculptures throughout benefit childhood imagination, creativity, problem solving, social development, selfesteem, and improved balance and strength. Sand, water, and loose parts provide unstructured play areas where children can manipulate and imagine. Climbing, balancing, and sliding opportunities present multiple degrees of challenge and risk through the use of logs and boulders, while plants incorporate sensory aspects of the natural world and provide a sense of wild in the urban environment.

“This is a unique and wonderful project to encourage children to play creatively and connect with nature.”

– Amanda Fritz Portland Parks Commissioner

Photos courtesy of GreenWorks and Portland Parks & Recreation

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Wild Walk Tupper Lake, NY • Charles P. Reay and The Wild Center

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1979

2017 2015

The Wild Walk is part of an indoor and outdoor 81-acre campus at The Wild Center that delivers a new kind of museum experience. Visitors can explore the treetops through a web of bridges and raised walkways that twist and turn through the forest. The environment is designed to give users an experience with the natural world from different perspectives, encouraging the use of every sense—even balance. Here, a simple walk in the woods becomes an educational, thrilling, and playful experience.

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“This has been our dream for years, to have a chance to knock down the walls and see what happens when the roof is the sky and the floor takes you up off the ground, and then fill the whole experience with stories about what is happening that exact moment in the living world.”

- Stephanie Ratcliffe Executive Director, The Wild Center

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After eight years of planning and development, artist and designer Charles “Chip” Reay led the design, which required 84 tons of steel to fabricate the 27 Tree Towers. The experience includes a four-story twig tree house, swinging bridges, a giant spider’s web, and opportunities to simply sit and observe the forest below. A full-sized bald eagle’s nest at the highest point encourages visitors to imagine life as one of the raptors that have made an astounding comeback in the Adirondacks. Fascinating stories and interactive signage along the Walk freeze moments in the forest and allow visitors to see them in intimate detail.

The Wild Walk was built three times; first via a 3D program, where it was modeled to the millimeter, then on the site of a steel fabricator, and finally—after disassembling and trucking it to New York—it was reassembled at The Wild Center. The design peels back the layers of the surrounding site to give visitors a taste of the Adirondacks and allow people to experience the “riskier side of living.”

Photos and drawing courtesy of Wild Center

In replicating the four-story white pine tree snag, the team used real tree bark and created high resolution digital files with them. They then enlarged each detail with computer modeling to craft perfectly scaled foam versions. The forms were touched up by artists and used to create rubber models to case the bark. These models were then wrapped around the giant, interactive tree snag at Wild Walk.

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Woodland Discovery Playground Memphis, TN • James Corner Field Operations

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2017

1979 2011

Woodland Discovery Playground serves as a leadingedge, international model for sustainable design, a place to be meaningfully immersed in nature, and a catalyst for community strength and personal health.

Set within a natural woodland context, the playground environment promotes discovery, interaction, and engagement. Here, children can move around freely and find opportunities to slide, climb, run, scramble, swing, build, and discover throughout their play experience.

The playground was constructed within Shelby Farms Park as part of a comprehensive plan to convert its 4,500 urban acres into a major public landmark.

Working with a $3.5 million budget, landscape architect and urban design group James Corner Field Operations began by engaging the Memphis community. Children participated in a public workshop aiming to distill the essence of great outdoor play. With feedback from the workshop, the elements of adventure, discovery, nature, fun, and surprises all became central to the design.

The site’s main feature is a meandering arbor planted with native trees and vines. The arbor links and frames six outdoor play rooms, or nests, that provide a funfilled sequence of “hide-and-seek” spaces. Featuring slides, swings, and suspended nets, the mounds and hollows maximize spatial and sensory experiences for children of all ages and abilities. Educational programs— incorporating the tree classroom and nature walks offered along a woodland restoration narrative trail— focus on inspiring environmental stewardship. Building upon current research on children’s developmental learning, the playground sets a new standard for designing outdoor play environments by providing a place for play that is sustainable and natural, fun and lively, and supportive of children’s growth.

A “Green Facts” interactive scavenger hunt is one of the site’s many sustainable design features, alongside minimized irrigation demands and a bioretention.

Photos courtesy of James Corner Field Operations

Extraordinary Playscapes • 159

160 • Design & Play

Rainbow Nest, Hokkaido. Photo courtesy of Masaki Koizumi 161

A young builder gathers twigs for his fort at a Design for Play kids workshop in Boston, MA. 162

Play: The Most Powerful Vehicle for Learning

By Peter Gray, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Boston College

Play is nature’s way of ensuring that young mammals, especially young humans, practice the skills they need in order to survive and thrive in the world in which they are growing up. The first person to point this out and amass evidence for it was the German philosopher and naturalist Karl Groos, near the end of the 19th century, in books entitled The Play of Animals and The Play of Man.

This “practice theory of play” is now widely accepted.

It explains why young animals play more than older ones (they have more to learn), why animals play most using the skills that are most crucial to their survival (for example, why predators play at predation and prey animals play at fleeing and dodging), and why those animal species that depend most on learning for their survival play more than do those that depend more on genetically fixed instincts.

It explains why mammals play more than fish, which may not play at all, and why young primates play more than other young mammals. Most particularly, it explains why young humans, when free to do so, play much more, and in far more ways, than do the young of any other species.

When children are truly free to play: • They play in physical ways, to develop strong bodies and graceful movements.

• They play in risky ways, to develop courage.

• They play socially with other children, to learn to cooperate with others.

• They play at building things, to learn to build.

• They play with the tools of their culture, to learn to use those tools.

• They play with language, to become competent with language.

• They play imaginative games, to learn to think hypothetically and creatively.

• They play with logic, to become logical.

• They play games with rules, to learn to follow rules.

Play Promotes Learning What exactly is play? I’ve analyzed the definitions of play presented by various prominent play researchers and theorists, and I’ve observed many activities referred to by most people as play. My conclusion: an activity is play, or is playful, to the degree that it contains these four characteristics.1 1. Play Is Self-Chosen and Self-Directed Play, first and foremost, is what one wants to do, as opposed to what one feels obliged to do. Any activity motivated by coercion, or perceived coercion, rather than by free choice is not play. Players choose not only to play, but also how to play—by definition, play is self-directed.

Play is a place where children learn how to plan and carry out their own activities without external guidance.

Some cognitive scientists refer to this as self-directed executive processing. Executive processes or functions refer to the set of cognitive processes necessary to control behavior, particularly behaviors towards achieving selfchosen goals. In 2014, researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder tested six-year-old children for levels of executive function, a key indicator of success later in life. They found that children who had plenty of time for self-directed play scored significantly higher than children whose time was more structured by adults.2

The self-directed nature of play has especially valuable educational outcomes when children play socially, which is how most children everywhere prefer to play. In social play, the players must decide together what and how to play. One person may emerge for a while as the leader, but only at the will of all the others.

Anyone may propose rules, but the rules must be agreeable to all. The most basic freedom in play is the freedom to quit. This is the flip side of the point that play is self-chosen. Any player can, at any moment, choose not to play. The freedom to quit ensures that all of the players are doing what they want to do, and it is the reason why decisions in play must be agreeable to all.

Since social play requires both keeping oneself and one’s playmates happy, this type of play facilitates learning to negotiate with peers. It’s hard to imagine a more important skill for human beings to learn.

When adults direct children’s play, solve their disagreements, or resolve problems, we take away their chances to learn how to do these things themselves. We take away their sense of independence and competence, establishing in them a belief in their own inadequacy.

Photo courtesy of Cliffords Photography

Consider, for example, the difference between an old-fashioned pickup game of baseball and a traditional Little League game. In the pickup game, the children must take charge of their own activities. They have to choose sides and make up rules that fit appropriately with the odd-shaped vacant lot and varying assortment of kids who have shown up. There’s no coach to tell them who plays what position and no umpire to tell them what is fair or foul or strike or ball, so they have to implicitly and explicitly negotiate everything. They have to figure out how to share equipment, because not everyone has a fielder’s glove or a bat. They have to make sure their playmates are happy, including those on the other team, because, if they don’t, enough may quit and the game will end. In all this, they are learning lessons of life that go way beyond how to play baseball. None of this happens in the scheduled Little League game, because the adult coaches and umpires set everything up and solve all 163

problems. In the Little League game the kids are not so much players as they are pawns in a game that’s played by the coaches.

2. Play is Intrinsically Motivated Play is activity that, from the conscious perspective of the player, is done more for its own sake than for some reward outside the activity itself. When people are not playing, what they value most are the results of their actions.

A person may scratch an itch to get rid of the itch, flee from a tiger to avoid getting eaten, or work at a boring job for money. If there were no itch, tiger, or paycheck, the person would not scratch, flee, or work. When people are not playing they typically opt for the least effortful way of achieving their goal. In play, however, all this is reversed. During play, attention is focused on the means more than the ends, and players do not necessarily look for the easiest routes to achieving those ends.

Play often has goals, but the goals are experienced as part and parcel of the activity, not as the primary reason for it. Goals in play are subordinate to the means for achieving them. For example, constructive play, the playful building of something, is always directed toward the goal of creating the object that the players have in mind, but the primary objective in such play is the creation of the object, not having the object once it is built. Children play intently at building a beautiful sandcastle even though they know that when the tide rises it will be washed to the sea.

Similarly, competitive play is directed toward the goal of scoring points and winning, but if the activity is truly play, then it is the process of scoring and trying to win that matters to the player, not a subsequent consequence of having scored and won. A great deal of

research shows that trophies, gold stars, and even praise can turn what was once play into non-play, that is, into something done for the reward rather than for its own sake. This is another problem that arises all too often when adults get involved in children’s play. Adults, at least in our society, tend to turn play into competition, with a focus on rewards for success, which can destroy the intrinsic motivation.

People often think of play as frivolous or trivial, and, in a way, they are right. Play is not directed toward achieving serious real-world goals such as food, money, or status, and it takes place at least partly in a fantasy world. But here is one of play’s delicious paradoxes: the enormous educational power of play lies in its triviality.

Play is the ideal context for practicing new skills or trying out new ways of doing things precisely because it has no real-world consequence. Nobody is judging, no trophy is on the line, no teammates will be let down, and therefore the player is free to fail. With freedom to fail comes freedom to experiment. The play world is a simulation world–a safe and fun place to practice for the real world. Many research studies, with adults as well as with children, have shown that people are more creative, more able to think outside the box, and better at learning new skills when they are playing than when they are trying to impress a judge or win a reward. The mind is free in play, in a way that is not true for activities done for extrinsic ends.

Play is often highly repetitive, which fits with the idea of attention to means not ends. Children at play do the same things again and again, perhaps making small changes each time. Repetition and systematic variation are part and parcel of practice. For example, when toddlers are learning to walk, they toddle repeatedly

Photo courtesy of Billy Hustace and MIG. Inc.

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back and forth between two items of furniture, and when they fall, they get up and try again. They’re playing. They aren’t going anywhere. They are just toddling for the sake of toddling, and that’s how they learn to walk.

Play is trivial but not easy. Much of the joy of play lies in the challenges. A playful activity that becomes too easy becomes boring and is no longer play. Toddlers who have mastered the art of two-legged walking move on to more advanced forms of locomotor play, such as running, jumping, and climbing. Teenagers playing video games move from one level of difficulty to another in the game. There would be no thrill in always playing at the same level. Players are usually acting at the cutting edge of their ability. That’s what makes it fun and why play is such a powerful vehicle for learning.

3. Play is Guided by Mental Rules Play is freely chosen activity, but it always has structure derived from rules in the players’ minds. In social play, the rules must be shared, or at least partially shared, by all the players. In a famous essay on the role of play in children’s development, the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky argued that play is the means by which children learn to control their impulses and abide by socially agreed-upon rules.3 The rules of play are endlessly modifiable, but there are always rules. If you violate the rules you are no longer playing.

The rules are not like rules of physics, nor like biological instincts, which are automatically followed.

Rather, they are mental concepts that often require conscious effort to keep in mind and follow. Play is how children learn to regulate their behavior in ways guided by mental concepts. The rules of play provide boundaries within which the actions must occur, but they do not precisely dictate each action. They always leave room for creativity. Activities that are precisely prescribed by rules are better referred to as rituals rather than as play.

For example, a basic rule of constructive play is that you must work with the chosen medium in a manner aimed at producing or depicting some specific object or design that you have in mind. In shared fantasy play–the playful acting out of roles and scenes, as when children play “house” or pretend to be superheroes–the fundamental rule is that players must abide by their shared understanding of the roles that they are playing; they must stay in character. If you are the mommy in a game of house, you must act like a mommy. If you are Wonder Woman and you fall down and skin your knee, you don’t cry, because Wonder Woman wouldn’t cry.

Even playful chasing and fighting, which may look wild to the observer, is constrained by rules. An alwayspresent rule in children’s play fighting, for example, is that the players mimic some of the actions of serious fighting, but don’t really hurt the other person. They don’t hit with all their force—they don’t kick, bite, or scratch.

The rules may not be explicitly stated, but are understood implicitly by the players, and if one player violates them the others will be quick to point that out. Mental rules continually challenge children to hold abstract concepts in their minds. In other words, they must constantly be imagining and stretching their creativity.

4. Play is Imaginative Play always involves some degree of mental removal of oneself from the real world and entry into an imaginary, fictitious world. Play of most sorts has time-in and timeout. Time-in is the period of fiction. Time-out is the temporary return to reality—perhaps to tie one’s shoes or correct a playmate who hasn’t been following the rules.

The imaginative nature of play is the flip side of play’s rule-based nature. Children, when given the chance, will create their shared imaginary world and the rules that govern their made-up scenarios.

Imagination is most obvious in shared fantasy play where the players create the characters and plot.

In rough and tumble play, the fight is a pretend one, not real. In constructive play, the players may say that they are building a castle from sand, but they know it’s a pretend castle, not a real one. Children are continuously training their imaginations, which is key to the highest levels of human thinking. It underlies much of what adults do that we most admire. For example, an architect designing a house is designing a real house. Yet, the architect brings a good deal of imagination to bear in visualizing the house, imagining how people might use it, and matching it with some aesthetic concepts she has in mind and imagination.

It is reasonable to say the architect builds a pretend house, in her mind and then on paper, before it becomes a real one. Similarly, a scientist, generating hypotheses to explain known facts, uses imagination to go beyond the facts. Einstein referred to his own creative achievements in mathematics and theoretical physics as “combinatorial play,” and he famously claimed that his understanding of relativity came to him in part by imagining himself chasing a sunbeam and imagining what would happen if he caught up with it. Geniuses often seem to be those who somehow retain, into adulthood, the imaginative capacities of small children and combine that with what they have learned about realities in the world.

In all of us, the capacity for abstract, hypothetical thinking depends on our ability to imagine situations that we haven’t actually experienced—to reason logically based on imagined situations. Something that happens every single time a child is at play.

The Special Value of Age-Mixed Play

Play is an even more powerful vehicle for learning when it takes place amongst children of different ages.

Through most of human history, children nearly always

Photo courtesy of San Francisco Recreation & Park

played in age-mixed groups.4 A typical group playing together might include children ranging in age from four to nine, or from seven to 13. Often such groups would also include toddlers, who were being cared for by older siblings. Only with the advent of age-graded schools and age-graded, adult-led activities outside of school have children been regularly segregated from one another by age. A good deal of research indicates that age-mixed play is especially conducive to learning.5 Advantages of Age-mixing for Younger Participants The most obvious benefit of age-mixed play for younger children is that it allows them to play at activities that would be too difficult or dangerous for them to do alone.

As a simple example, two four-year-olds cannot play a simple game of catch together. Neither one can throw the ball straight enough for the other to catch it. But, if you add an eight-year-old into the mix, catch becomes possible. The eight-year-old can toss the ball gently into the hands of the four-year-old, so he has a good chance of catching it, and the eight-year-old can run and leap and catch the wild throws of the four-year-old. Both are having fun; both are playing at the cutting edge of their own ability.

In the 1930s, Vygotsky coined the term “zone of proximal development” to refer to the set of activities that a child cannot do alone or just with others of the same ability, but can do in collaboration with others who are more skilled.6 He suggested that children develop new skills and understanding largely by collaborating with others within their zones of proximal development.

Extending Vygotsky’s idea, psychologists more recently have used the term scaffolding as a metaphor for the means by which skilled participants enable novices to engage in a shared activity. In the example above, playing catch is in the zone of proximal development for

the four-year-old, and the eight-year-old erects scaffolds by throwing gently and by leaping to catch wild throws.

In an extensive study of naturally occurring agemixed play, scaffolding was observed in essentially every instance of play in which the players were four years or more apart in age.7 The older children nearly always brought the younger ones up to higher levels of activity than would have otherwise been possible for those children. Scaffolding was observed in such activities as tree climbing, playful fighting, basketball, card games, and computer games. The scaffolding was intellectual as well as physical. In card games, for example, the older players reminded the younger ones to pay attention, to remember which cards had been played, and to think ahead. They were, in a very real sense, scaffolding the younger ones’ intelligence.

Other research has focused on scaffolding in very young children. Two- and three-year-olds are generally incapable of collaborative social play with one another.

When placed together they engage in side-by-side parallel play, paying some attention to one another but not merging their play into a socially combined activity.

However, as anthropologist Melvin Konner has pointed out, parallel play is largely an artifact of modern agesegregation. Traditionally, toddlers were more or less always in the presence of older children who were able to draw them up into truly social play. Research studies have revealed that even four- and five-year-olds can engage two-year-olds in truly shared fantasy play by structuring the toddlers’ roles and explaining to them what to do. 8,9

Even when they are not playing together, younger children learn from older ones by watching and listening.

When they observe older children climbing trees or solving puzzles, for example, they often work to emulate the older children’s actions. They hear older children Play: The Most Powerful Vehicle for Learning • 165

talking and acquire a richer vocabulary, new linguistic constructions, and new ideas. They see older children reading and talking about what they have read, and that motivates them to learn to read.

My own observations suggest that children are more prone to learn in these ways from older children than they are from adults.10 Young children believe, usually correctly, that older children’s activities are within their own realm of possibility, but adults’ activities often are not, and they try to emulate the behaviors of older children more than those of adults. Five-year-olds are much more motivated to be like the “cool” seven- and eight-year-olds they see around them than like adults.

Older children are more closely matched to the younger ones in energy level, sense of humor, and natural interests than adults, and they remember better what it was like to be the age of the younger child. They are also less likely to turn the scaffolding into an explicit, play-ruining “teaching opportunity” rather than just continuing the fun.

Advantages of Age-mixing for Older Participants Age-mixed play benefits older children as well. It provides them the opportunity to practice being the mature one— the helper or leader in a relationship. Even five-year-olds feel mature and nurturing when playing with threeyear-olds. Cross-cultural research has revealed that boys and girls everywhere demonstrate more kindness and compassion when playing with children who are several years younger than when playing with age-mates. My own research suggests that teenagers, male and female, are especially motivated to play with and nurture much younger children.11 From an evolutionary standpoint, I speculate that this motivation derives from their gutlevel understanding that they may, before long, become parents. They are practicing for parenthood. Age-mixed play also helps older children consolidate and expand upon their own knowledge. Often, in such play, the older children can be heard explaining rules and concepts to the younger ones—to do so they must make their own implicit understanding explicit. They must re-think what they know, so they can put it into words that younger children can understand.

Also, just as younger children are inspired to engage in the advanced activities they see among older ones, older children are inspired to engage in the creative and imaginative activities that they see among younger kids.

I have witnessed teenagers playing joyfully with paints, clay, blocks, or make-believe with, or alongside, younger children—activities they might otherwise eschew as “too childish” for them.

Some of the most creative and joyful samples of play that I have witnessed in my career are of teenagers and younger children engaged in shared fantasy play. As an example, here is a scene I recorded as I watched children 166 • Design & Play

playing at a school where children are allowed to mix freely across ages:12

“I was sitting in the playroom pretending to read a book but surreptitiously observing a remarkable scene.

A 13-year-old boy and two seven-year-old boys were creating, purely for their own amusement, a fantastic story involving heroic characters, monsters, and battles. The seven-year-olds gleefully shouted out ideas about what would happen next, while the 13-year-old, an excellent artist, translated the ideas into a coherent story and sketched the scenes on the blackboard almost as fast as the younger children could describe them.

The game continued for at least half an hour. I felt privileged to enjoy an artistic creation that, I know, could not have been produced by seven-year-olds alone and almost certainly would not have been produced by a 13-year-old alone. The unbounded enthusiasm and creative imagery of the seven-year-olds, combined with the advanced narrative and artistic abilities of the 13-year-old, provided just the right chemical mix for this creative explosion to occur.”

Our Play Responsibility We live in a world today that, to put it mildly, is poorly designed for children. To develop as nature intended, children need lots of time to play—especially with other children, in age-mixed groups, away from intervening, controlling adults. Today our children spend too much time on schoolwork and other adult-directed activities and too little time playing freely with other children, discovering and pursuing their own interests, as children did through most of human existence. The lessons children learn in play—initiative, planning, courage, creative thinking, self-control, negotiation, and empathy—cannot be taught in school or in any adultdirected way; they can only be learned when children are in charge of their own activities. It is in play with other children, away from adult control, that children practice being adults, practice being powerful, capable, and mature. It is possible to think of many reasons why our culture has shifted in this anti-child, anti-play direction, but there is no excuse. If we care about our children, and if we care about our nation’s future, we have an obligation to make the social changes that will allow children, once again, to be children. Bringing real play back into children’s lives should be a priority for every family, neighborhood, city, state, and nation. • Notes & Sources: p.170 This essay is a condensation of ideas that are elaborated upon more fully in the author’s book, Free to Learn: Why Releasing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, Basic Books.

Photo courtesy of JMD Design

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What Does Play Mean To You? Stories from Our Supporters

Jay Beckwith

Joseph Fry

Gymboree Play and Music as an Extraordinary Playscape

Principal Hapa Collaborative

In the past couple of decades there has been a profound change in the lives of families and children. We cannot ignore that we live in an “Attention Economy.” Vast fortunes and the largest companies have burst upon the scene by finding ways to grab our attention, hang on to it, and then sell it. This will only get worse as the rewards are so high for getting better and better at this manipulation, and, unless governmental regulations are applied, only the companies that produce the games, apps, and devices can stop this mad spiral, but they have huge incentives to do just the opposite.

It is not just the digital world, but entertainment, politicians, and news organizations all vie for a slice of our time. This constant battle for eyeballs is having a devastating impact on families as it is systematically destroying the child-parent attachment bond. The results are starting to trickle in; college students are depressed and directionless, there is an increasing rate of suicides by high school students, and young children are increasingly disconnected.

There is another huge change. Today, over 80% of children worldwide now live in urban settings, and that trend is increasing. Most of these children do not have ready access to quality play settings. Of course, being

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outside is ideal but the facts of life are that weather is often inhospitable, the air is polluted, or there are other issues that limit visits to parks. As access to play and nature diminishes, the siren song of the virtual world grows stronger.

The answer is to recognize that highly trained and paid people are manipulating us and our kids, and we must turn off the noise and turn back to personal, face to face contact. It means not responding to that “important” text message and sitting down to read with your child. It means no devices at the dinner table. But most of all it means taking time to play.

This is the mission of Gymboree Play and Music.

Most people think of Play and Music as a children’s play program which is true, but it is, in fact, just as much a “parenting” program. Yes, there is a teacher who facilitates the activities, but the bulk of the time in class is free play with child and parent. The teacher’s role shows parents how to spot their child as they learn new skills, how to point out moments when the children have just mastered a challenge, how to encourage without using praise, etc. The aim is to help new parents, many of whom are candid about their lack of parenting skills, find their own style and become confident and relaxed as they guide their child over the coming decades.

Play and Music classes are also opportunities for socializing, and countless life-long friendships have formed during the 40-plus years that Play and Music has existed. In the last year, Play and Music separated from the Gymboree clothing company and is now on a path of rapid expansion to significantly grow from the current size of over 750 sites in 41 countries. The newfound capacity to scale is important as the forces lined up to monetize our attention are powerful and everywhere.

While any extraordinary playscape is an accomplishment, to be able to directly address this critical issue and deliver the benefits into places where no other play opportunities are available gives new meaning to the term “extraordinary.”

As designers of play experiences, we feel that play should rouse a sense of adventure, discovery and immersion in the context of the place. Play should promote freedom, encourage risk-taking, provoke creativity and challenge children both physically and emotionally. We make every effort to build play environments that engage the senses and provide a vast range of physical learning.

Our design process for Terra Nova included a range of consultation efforts with our Big Kids–parks and recreation leaders, artists and educators, park users and local historians, recent immigrants and long-time residents–and Little Kids, Kindergarten and Grade Five students from two local schools. Each group helped us define play through words, drawings, models and performances, tapping into common themes of discovery and thrill seeking, prospect and refuge, social and solitary time, physical and sensory play, and variety of ability and experience.

The result of this process resulted in a play environment that is deeply connected to its place at the mouth of the Fraser River, informed by the dialogue with our Big and Little Kids, and enriched by a thorough collaboration between designers, planners, and builders.

Blake Goodwin

Paul J. Levine

President Proportion Design

CEO PlayScience

A young boy throws a ball into Peter’s chest and cries out, “Play!” Bouncing off Peter, the ball is caught by a second boy who then releases it to hit Peter in the face, declaring the same, “Play!”

From one of Steven Spielberg’s crucial directorial works, this iconic scene lays bare the true essence of Peter Banning’s journey. To solve the immense challenge of saving his children, Peter, masterfully portrayed by Robin Williams, must remember what it is like to be a child himself. He must remember his instinct to play.

Evident in the reference to children, play is an unrestrained release of energy, paramount to development as curiosity is fulfilled with chaotic and innocent exploration. The results unfold first in discovery and ultimately in the understanding of patterns, rules, inconsistencies, opportunities, and goals.

Yet the risks of stagnation and complacency increase with time, as a context becomes larger, and the amount of energy greater. Established rules can appear more powerful, and new knowledge cumbersome. Only through continued play can new growth result and new solutions formulated, within, and most importantly, beyond precedents. Creativity arises, and evolution is sustained through the continuous acceleration of play.

Play is essential to survival.

This constructive importance of play is experienced in nearly all applications, from professional endeavors in science and humanities over to sport and the everyday passage of time. So often the best solutions derive from happy accidents discovered when fooling around with a team as creative energy is allowed to flow unabated.

When preconceptions are discarded and imaginations are allowed to run like a child released at the playground, we, like Peter, make the unimaginable a possibility. In our instinct to play, we fly to the rescue.

Play is a one of the most powerful means of engaging the world. In designing and developing global play experiences, programs, and businesses over the last 15 years, I’ve seen first hand the incredible potency in play. Play is universal. Play engages. Play empowers.

Play builds, bonds, and connects, in both people and communities. Play teaches from ages two to 92 alike.

Play develops important values, such as honesty, empathy, fairness, and teamwork. Whether active, creative, role-play, game-play, toy-play, athletic, indoor, outdoor, digital, virtual, or any of the ever-changing combinations, play is one of the most essential activities kids, parents, and communities can engage in. In play, we often discover and become our best selves.

Play can be life altering. For children ages zero to three, daily co-play that facilitates positive “serve and return” interactions between a child and parent or caregiver literally grows, wires, and actualizes the potential of developing brains. Babies and toddlers with more of these playful interactions have a leg-up in terms of intellectual, emotional and physical development.

Play also allows kids to become active participants in their own growth, by creating challenges just out of their comfort zones. Indeed, play helps kids to develop a “growth mindset” by fostering grit, resilience, confidence, an intrinsic love of learning, and a “can-do” attitude. In addition, play makes it safe to fail, which emboldens children to embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, and master and shape the world around them. Play also teaches kids to think innovatively and make their own rules.

Moreover, adults and communities need play too! In addition to co-play being a great way for parents to bond with and learn about their children, play helps adults of all ages to better focus, relieve stress, stimulate creativity, and connect more deeply with the people in their lives.

It’s incredibly exciting to be a member of this dynamic community during the current play renaissance, especially after years of play being de-prioritized in schools and society. Designing impactful play spaces and cross-platform experiences can be quite challenging given the vast mix of cultures, venues, ages, needs and

abilities, digital and virtual platforms, play modes, and desired outcomes that are common today.

In our experience, integrating design thinking principles deeply rooted in consumer insights with expertise in child development, storytelling, and multiplatform play and media, has proven a highly effective approach. Immensely gratifying work, to say the least!

Cheri Ruane Boston Society of Landscape Architects and Weston & Sampson Design Studio To play: to run, to roll, to swing, to slide, to spin, to seek, to hide, to get lost, to surprise, to explore, to try, to create, to imagine. To rinse and repeat.

Play is the joy of making the world match your own wonderfully whimsical imagination. The journey far outweighs the destination and absorbs the player intensely and utterly. There is no material interest or profit to be gained; play is intrinsically motivated. In the immortal words of Winnie the Pooh, “We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.”

What Does Play Mean to You? • 169

Bibliography Featured Essays: The Case for Adventure Play

by Katie Shook p.95 1. “The History of Adventure Play,” London Play, accessed September 13, 2017, www.londonplay.org.uk/content/29961/ play_in_london/adventure_play_in_london/history/the_history_ of_adventure_play.

2. “The Playwork Principles,” Playwork Principles Scrutiny Group, Cardiff, 2005, www.playwales.org.uk/login/uploaded/documents/ Playwork%20Principles/playwork%20principles.pdf.

3. Simon Nicholson, “How Not to Cheat Children: the Theory of Loose Parts,” Landscape Architecture 62 (1971): 30-34.

4. Morgan Leichter-Saxby and Suzanna Law, “The New Adventure Playground Movement: How Communities across the USA are Returning Risk and Freedom to Childhood” (California: Notebook Publishing, 2015).

Play: The Most Powerful Vehicle for Learning

By Peter Gray p.163 1. Peter Gray, “Definition of Play,” Encyclopedia of Play Science, 2012, www.scholarpedia.org/article/Encyclopedia_of_Play_ Science.

2. J. E. Barker et al., “Less-Structured Time in Children’s Daily Lives Predicts Self-Directed Executive Functioning,” Frontiers in Psychology, 5 (2014): 1-16.

3. Lev Vygotsky, “The Role of Play in Development,” in Mind in Society: the Development of Higher Psychological Processes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 92-104.

4. M. Konner, “Relations Among Infants and Juveniles in Comparative Perspective,” in The Origins of Behavior, ed. M. Lewis and L. A. Rosenblum (New York: Wiley, 1975), 99–129.

5. Peter Gray, “The Special Value of Age-Mixed Play,” American Journal of Play, 3 (2011): 500-522.

5. Hanna Rosin, “The Overprotected Kid,” Atlantic Monthly, April 2014, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/heyparents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/

6. Lev Vygotsky, “Interaction Between Learning and Development,” in Mind in Society: the Development of Higher Psychological Processes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978).

6. For further reading and viewing see: Joan Acocella, “The Child Trap,” New Yorker, November 17, 2008; Erin Davis. The Land, directed by Erin Davis (2015: PBS Vermont).

7. Peter Gray et al., “Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development…,” American Journal of Education, 110 (2004): 108-145.

7. Stuart Brown. “Play, Spirit, and Character.” Interview by Krista Tippett. On Being with Krista Tippett, On Being Studios, June 19, 2014. Audio, 51:00. www.onbeing.org/programs/stuart-brownplay-spirit-and-character/.

8. C. Howes et al., “Social Pretend Play in 2-Year-Olds: Effects of Age of Partner,” Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2 (1987): 305-314.

Where Design Meets Play

by Kate Tooke p.137 1. The Trust for Public Land, Center for City Park Excellence, 2014 City Park Facts: bit.ly/2bfn2R7 2. Copeland, et al, “Societal values and policies may curtail preschool children’s physical activity in child care centers,” Journal of Pediatrics, 10.1542 (2011-2102).

3. Kyung Hee Kim, “The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking,” Creativity Research Journal, 23:4 (2011): 285-295.

Bettelheim, Bruno. “The Importance of Play.” The Atlantic 3 (1987): 35-43.

Bodrova, Elena, Carrie Germeroth, and Deborah J. Leong. “Play and Self-Regulating.” American Journal of Play 6:1 (2013) 111-123.

Brown, Stuart. “Play, Spirit, and Character.” Interview by Krista Tippett. On Being with Krista Tippett, On Being Studios, June 19, 2014. Audio, 51:00. https://onbeing.org/programs/stuart-brownplay-spirit-and-character/.

Brussoni, Mariana, Lise Olsen, Ian Pike, and David Sleet. “Risky Play and Children’s Safety: Balancing Priorities for Optimal Child Development.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 9 (2012): 3134-48.

Brussoni, Mariana et al. “What is the Relationship Between Risky Outdoor Play and Health in Children? A Systematic Review.”

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12 (2015): 6423-54.

9. A. E. Maynard, “Cultural Teaching: the Development of Teaching Skills in Maya Sibling Interactions,” Child Development, 73 (2002): 969-982.

10. Peter Gray, “The Special Value of Age-Mixed Play,” American Journal of Play, 3 (2011): 500-522.

Clements, Rhonda. “An Investigation of the Status of Outdoor Play.” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 5 (2004): 68–80.

11. Peter Gray et al., “Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development…,” American Journal of Education, 110 (2004): 108-145.

Copeland, Kristen A., Susan N. Sherman, Cassandra A. Kendeigh, Heidi J. Kalkwarf, and Brian E. Saelens. “Societal Values and Policies May Curtail Preschool Children’s Physical Activity in Child Care Centers,” Journal of Pediatrics, 10.1542/peds: 2011-2102.

12. Peter Gray et al., “Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development…,” American Journal of Education, 110 (2004): 516-517.

Gray, Peter. Free to Learn. New York: Basic Books, 2013.

5. Hanna Rosin, “The Overprotected Kid,” Atlantic Monthly, April 2014: theatln.tc/2bfq2x2

Acocella, Joan. “The Child Trap,” New Yorker, November 17, 2008.

Complete Bibliography & Further Reading Adolph, Karen. “Learning to Move.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 17:3 (2008): 213-18.

Allen, Lady, of Hurtwood. Planning for Play. London: Thames and Hudson, 1968.

Ball, David, Tim Gill, and Bernard Spiegal. Play Safety Forum: Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation Guide Second Edition. Play England: National Children’s Bureau, 2012.

170 • Design & Play

Barker, J. E., A. D. Semenov, Michaelson, L.S. Provan, R. Snyder, and Y. Munakata. “Less-structured Time in Children’s Daily Lives Predicts Self-Directed Executive Functioning.” Frontiers in Psychology 5:593 (2014): 1-16. Accessed October 14, 2015. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00593.

Cardon G, Van Cauwenberghe E, Labarque V, Haerens L, De Bourdeaudhuij I. “The contribution of preschool playground factors in explaining children’s physical activity during recess.”

The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 5:11 (2008). Accessed November 19, 2015. doi:10.1186/1479-5868-5-11.

4. Sanseter, et. al, “Children’s Risky Play from an Evolutionary Perspective: The Anti-Phobic Effects of Thrilling Experiences,” Evolutionary Psychology, 9:2 (2011): 257-284.

6. Brussoni et al, “What is the relationship between risky outdoor play and health in children? A systematic review” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12:6 (2015) 6423-6454.

Ball, David, Tim Gill, and Bernard Spiegal. Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation Guide. London: National Children’s Bureau for Play England and on behalf of Play Safety Forum, 2012.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Jeremy Hunter. “Happiness In Everyday life: The Uses of Experiences Sampling.” Journal of Happiness Studies 4 (2003): 185–199.

Davis, Erin. The Land, Directed by Erin Davis, 2015. PBS Vermont.

Derbyshire, David. “How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations.” Daily Mail, October 11, 2007. http://www.dailymail. co.uk/newsarticle-462091/How-children-lost-right-roamgenerations.html.

Eriksen, Aase. Playground Design: Outdoor Environments for Learning and Development. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc., 1985.

Fang, Serena. “Unfair Play: The Fight for a Truly Inclusive Playground.” Al Jazeera America, September 10, 2014.

Accessed October 22, 2015. http://america.aljazeera.com/ watch/showsamerica-tonight/articles/2014/9/10/playground-

childrenwithdisabilities.html.

Kim, Kyung Hee. “The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking.”

Creativity Research Journal 23:4 (2011): 285-95.

Singer, Dorothy, Roberta Golinkoff, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. Play = Learning: How Play Motivates and Enhances Children’s Cognitive and Social-Emotional Growth. Oxford: New York, 2006.

Konner, M.. “Relations Among Infants and Juveniles in Comparative Perspective,” in The Origins of Behavior, ed. M. Lewis and L. A. Rosenblum. New York: Wiley, 1975), 99–129.

Singh, Gopal K., Mohammad Sihpush, and Michael D. Kogan.

“Neighborhood Socioeconomic Conditions, Built Environments, And Childhood Obesity,” Health Affairs 29:3 (2010): 503–512.

Lahey, Jessica. “Recess Without Rules.” The Atlantic, Jan 8, 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/recesswithout-rules/283382/.

Solomon, Susan G. American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space. New Hampshire: University Press of England, 2005.

Gray, Peter. “The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents.” American Journal of Play 3:4 (2011): 443-63.

Leichter-Saxby, Morgan, The New Adventure Playground Movement: How Communities across the USA are Returning Risk and Freedom to Childhood. California: Notebook Publishing, 2015.

Solomon, Susan G. The Science of Play. London: University Press of New England, 2014.

Gray, Peter. “The Decline of Play and Rise in Children’s Mental Disorders.” Psychology Today, January 26, 2015. https://www. psychologytoday.comblog/freedom-learn/201001/the-declineplay-and-rise-in-childrens-mental-disorders.

Louv, Richard. Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-deficit Disorder. North Carolina: Algonquin Books Of Chapel Hill, 2005.

Gill, Tim. No fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2007.

Gill, Tim. “The Play Return: A Review of the Wider Impact of Play Initiatives.” Children’s Play Policy Forum (2014): 1-40.

Ginsburg, Kenneth, and Regina Milteer. “The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Mainstreaming Strong Parent-Child Bonds.” American Academy of Pediatrics 129:1 (2012): 204-13.

Stenson, Jacqueline. “Want to Boost Kid’s Grades? Get Them Moving.” MSNBC, August 19, 2008. http://www.nbcnews.com/ id/26207599/ns/health-fitness/t/want-boost-kids-grades-getthem-moving/#.VifTFRCrSRs. The Trust for Public Land. “2014 City Park Facts.” https://www.tpl. org/2014-city-park-facts.

Gray, Peter. “The Special Value of Age-Mixed Play.” American Journal of Play, 3 (2011): 500-522.

Maynard, A. E. “Cultural Teaching: the Development of Teaching Skills in Maya Sibling Interactions.” Child Development, 73 (2002): 969-982.

Gray, Peter, and Jay Feldman. “Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development: Qualities of Self-Directed Age Mixing between Adolescents and Young Children at a Democratic School.”

American Journal of Education 110 (2004): 108-145.

Miller, Alice. “In New Zealand, a Playground Designed for and

by Kids.” CityLab, September 3, 2015. http://www.citylab.com/ design/2015/09/in-new-zealand-a playground-designed-for-andby-kids/402553/.

Grob-Zakhary, Randa. “The Unexpected Role of Creativity in Solving the Worlds biggest Problems.” LEGO Idea Conference, LEGO Foundation. April 9, 2013.

Miller, Edward, and Joan Almon. “Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School.” College Park, MD: Alliance for Childhood, 2009.

Hart, Roger. The Changing City of Childhood: Implications for Play and Learning. New York: The Workshop Center, 1986.

Murray, Robert, and Catherine Ramstetter. “The Crucial Role of Recess in Schools.”American Academy of Pediatrics 131:1 (2013): 1183-188.

Twenge, Jean, Brittany Gentile, C. Nathan DeWall, Debbie Ma, Katharine Lacefield, and David R. Schurtz. “Birth Cohort Increases in Psychopathology Among Young Americans, 1938-2007: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of the MMPI,” Clinical Psychology Review 30 (2010): 145-154.

Parker-Pope, Tara. “The 3 R’s? A Fourth is Crucial, Too:Recess”.

The New York Times Online, February 23, 2009. http://www. nytimes.com/2009/02/24/health/ 24well.html?_r=1.

Ungar, Michael. Too Safe For Their Own Good:How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2007.

Piaget, Jean. Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. New York: Norton, 1951.

Vanderbilt, Tom. “Lawn Pox: Children’s Play Equipment and the Decline of the American Yard.” Slate Magazine, May 2, 2008. http://www.slate.com/articles arts/culturebox/2.

Howard-Jones, Paul, Jayne Taylor, and Lesley Sutton.“The Effects of Play on the Creativity of Young Children,” Early Childhood Development and Care 172:4 (2002): 323-328.

Howes, C., and J. Farver. “Social Pretend Play in 2-Year-Olds: Effects of Age of Partner.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 2 (1987): 305-314.

Hoy, Selena. “Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone.”

The Atlantic, October 2, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/ technology/archive/2015/10/why-japanese-kids-can-walk-toschool-alone/408475/.

Hüttenmoser, M. “Children and their living surroundings: Empirical investigation into the significance of living surroundings for the everyday life and development of children.” Child Environ.

(1995):403–413.

Jacobs, Tom. “The Value of Unstructured Play Time for Kids.”

Pacific Standard, May 9, 2014. http://www.psmag.com/booksand-culture/value-unstructured-play-time-kids-81177.

Jambor, Tom, and Van Gils, ed. “Multiple Perspectives on Children’s Play.” Antwerp: Garant Publishers, 2007.

KaBOOM. “Adventure Playgrounds.” KaBOOM.org. Accessed November 10, 2015. http:media.kaboom.org/docs/documents/ pdf/adventure_playgrounds.pdf.

Reddy, Sumathi. “Playing It Too Safe?” The Wall Street Journal Online, November 19, 2012. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001 424127887323622904578129063506832312.

Rosin, Hanna. “The Overprotected Kid.” The Atlantic, April 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/heyparents-leave-those-kidsalone/35861/.

Sandseter, EB, and Leif E.O. Kennair. “Children’s Risky Play From an Evolutionary Perspective: The Anti-Phobic Effects of Thrilling Experiences.” Evolutionary Psychology 9:2 (2011) 257-84.

Saracho, Olivia N., and Bernard Spodek, Ed. Multiple Perspectives on Play in Early Childhood Education. New York: State University of New York, 1998.

Schorr, Melissa. “When Did Parents Get So Scared?” The Boston Globe, August 26, 2015. https://www.bostonglobe. com/magazine/2015/08/26/when-did parents-get-scared/ dEsGOllSt3zhFPfy1iOzKI/story.html.

“Time out. Is recess in danger?” Center for Public Education, August 6, 2008. http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/MainMenu/Organizing-a school/Time-out-Is-recess-in-danger.

Tremblay, Mark S., et al. “Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12 (2015): 6475-6505.

Vygotsky, Lev. “Interaction Between Learning and Development,” in Mind in Society: the Development of Higher Psychological Processes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978).

Vygotsky, Lev. “The Role of Play in Development,” in Mind in Society: the Development of Higher Psychological Processes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978),92-104.

Walker, Tim. “The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland.”

The Atlantic, October 1, 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/ education/archive/2015/10/the joyful-illiterate-kindergartners-offinland/408325/. 008/05/lawn_pox.html.

Walton, Alice G. “New Playgrounds Are Safe—and That’s Why Nobody Uses Them.” The Atlantic, February 2012. http://www. theatlantic.com/healtharchive/2012/02/new-playgrounds-aresafe-and-thats-why-nobody-uses-them/252108/.

Bibliography • 171

Acknowledgements & Special Thanks Content Advisory Committee Cheri Ruane, Spurr, Weston & Sampson’s Design Studio Christina Frank, Landscape Architectural Designer Christopher Cook, Boston Parks & Recreation Dieter Reuther, Cast Collective Kate Tooke, Sasaki Associates Katie Shook, MUDLAND Lillian Hsu, Cambridge Arts & Exhibits Liza Meyer, Boston Parks & Recreation Maggie Cooper, KaBOOM! Michael Laris, PlayPower Inc.

Greenworks Landscape Architect

Timothy Hursley

Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc.

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam

Hapa Collaborative

Tres Birds Workshop

Harper’s Playground

UltiPlay Parks & Playgrounds Inc.

Helen & Hard AS

Uniguide

Hitchcock Design Group

Vicent Josep Llobell Bisbal

Interplay Design & Manufacturing, Inc.

Vicki Schmidt

J-U-B Engineers, Inc.

The Wild Center

James Corner Field Operations

Will Hathaway

JMD Design Land Use Consultants

Special Thanks

Landschaft GmbH

Boston Society of Landscape Architects

Leathers & Associates

Courtney Hope Cooper

Staff

Lisa Bransten

Darell Hammond & Kate Becker

Sam Aquillano, Executive Director

Luckey Climbers

Derek Cascio

Lyn Davidson

Essential Design

Mack McFarland

Halvorson Design Partnership

Maggie Cooper

Jay Beckwith

Missy Benson, Playworld

Liz Pawlak, Vice President Erica Rife, Community Manager Amanda Hawkins, Program Manager Jennifer Jackson, Executive Assistant Alexis Babaian, Events & Marketing Producer Maggie Davis, Design Producer

Partners & Contributors Alfio Bonanno American Adventure Playground Association ANNABAU Architektur The Appalachian Mountain Club Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham Ashley Gibson Graeter Architecture is Fun Bob Cassilly Boston Parks & Recreation Brenda Biondo BSA Space Cambridge Seven Associates CEBRA Architecture Charles P. Reay City Museum City of Berkeley City of Cambridge The City of Richmond Danish Forest and Nature Agency The Esplanade Association Erect Architecture Erin Davis Gary Datka GE Fielder & Associates, Chartered Girvin Associates

172 • Design & Play

Manolo Martín Mary Fichtner Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Megan Anderson Michelle Jeffers MIG, Inc. Mitch Ryerson MONSTRUM Norwegian Petroleum Museum Stavanger Pacific Northwest College of Arts Patrick Dougherty Philadelphia Zoo Place Studio Play Space Design Playpower, Inc. (Playworld?)

Pop-Up Adventure Play Polly Carpenter Portland Parks & Recreation Rafael Rivera Richard Dattner, Architect Robert Steck, Architect Rockwell Group Rural Studio, Auburn University San Francisco Parks Alliance San Francsisco Recreation & Parks Sasaki Associates SMP Architects Stuart Brown Super Local

Jaywalk Studio LLC. Jim and Julie Matheson JMD Design Joseph Fry, Hapa Collective Julia Rousakis, Director, Architectural Playground Equipment, Inc. Koch Landscape Architecture MIG Opsis Architecture Paul Levine Proper Villains Proportion Design Richard Banfield Sam & Wendy Aquillano Spurr Design Studio, Weston and Samson

Board of Directors Deb Aldrich Dawn Barrett Matt Edlen Scott Englander Zeina Grinnell Lauren Jezienicki Emily Klein Elizabeth Lowrey Jeff Monahan Chokdee Rutirasiri David Silverman Madison Thompson Ashley Welch

Advisory Council Boston Meghan Allen Philip Barash Derek Cascio Jess Charlap Marc D’Amore Caleb Dean Monique Fuchs Elizabeth Gross Dabney Hailey Evan Ryan David Saltman Asha Srikantiah

Extraordinary Playscapes Exhibition Extraordinary Playscapes is a traveling exhibit curated by Design Museum Foundation, exploring over 40 international playscape designs, the history of playground movements, and the science of play. The exhibition features case studies, models, drawings, videos, and playable installations from some of the most incredible play spaces in the world.

Design Museum Foundation strives to continue educating the public about the importance of design and play, so the exhibit is adaptable to almost any 2,000-3,000 square foot space. In each hosting city we create a Playground Passport to highlight the best local spaces for outdoor play and partner with organizations and thought leaders on event programming about the importance of play in our communities.

To bring Extraordinary Playscapes to your city, contact us at info@designmusemfoundation.org

Adam Stoltz

Portland Joe Baldwin Amanda Claire Ericka Colvin Brittney Herrera Ed Herrera Richard Potestio Jeri Tess

San Francisco Kate Barry Vanessa Camones Liz Comperchio Andrea Fineman Susan Gladwin Anna Kawar Heather King Loren Marshall Nicole Richardson Scott Thibeault Robin Zander

Acknowledgements & Special Thanks • 173