Playground Design

[Tracey]

I just read this fascinating article in the New York Times, about the “Imagination Playground in a Box“, in Brooklyn, designed by David Rockwell. I’d be interested to hear your feedback on it.

Here’s an excerpt:

It began as a six-foot-long robot named Simon. Then over the course of a few minutes, Kamai Pugh, 7, took Simon apart and transformed the array of blue blocks and foam noodles into a child’s vision of a miniature park with swing sets, a weighing scale, a balance beam, a swimming pool and finally, a lime-green airplane.

At the Imagination Playground in a Box, no fantasy seems too far-fetched. The colorful gear, which arrived at the Brownsville Recreation Center in Brooklyn last week and will remain there through Labor Day, is designed to unleash creativity by allowing children to invent their own activities.

Instead of plummeting down slides or dangling from the monkey bars, children on Saturday built polyethylene palaces from blocks shaped like triangles, clovers, rectangles and cylinders.

They became instant abstractionists, using sturdy brushes to mix heaps of wet sand with colored chalk on the cement. And the urban planners-in-training among them took turns toying with hoses and blocks to create water irrigation systems.

[Phillip Smith]

This looks fantastic Tracey. I’d like to read more about the process of developing this stuff. We’ve been looking at a similar less technical approach at the community centre I work at. We’ve been working on ideas the theme ‘things animals build’ – birdsnest, spiders webs etc. and developing a range of safe building materials that kids can use to construct their own playground.

[Phillip Smith]

Cant seem to upload any images sorry.

[Tracey]

Wow, I really love the natural feel of those photos… especially the dragon! Very imaginative.

Phillip Smith said:

This looks fantastic Tracey. I’d like to read more about the process of developing this stuff. We’ve been looking at a similar less technical approach at the community centre I work at. We’ve been working on ideas the theme ‘things animals build’ – birdsnest, spiders webs etc. and developing a range of safe building materials that kids can use to construct their own playground.

[Jonathan Fell]

That sounds fantastic. So, does it tour around or is it on a fixed site? Brighton would be a great place for something like that wonder if something like that could happen here. I’ll have a look into it. Are there any sites showing that project anywhere?

Jonathan

[Tracey]

There’s a video on their website, http://www.imaginationplayground.org – under photos. It’s pretty neat.

Jonathan Fell said:

That sounds fantastic. So, does it tour around or is it on a fixed site? Brighton would be a great place for something like that wonder if something like that could happen here. I’ll have a look into it. Are there any sites showing that project anywhere?

Jonathan

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