The working title of the book I’m writing for Norton about the cultural history of the garden (if I can ever finish it in between the nanotechnology and the business deals!) is The Literate Garden, and so when the nice folks at Monstrum sent me a description of their latest installation The Literate Playground immediately came to mind.

I love that this playscape is attached to Scandinavia’s largest library, and that it represents in its own way a collection of knowledge:  five play spaces organized as a  ‘Kloden’ (globe) along compass directions for specific locations around the world, with giant creatures (Monstrum’s biggest ever!) that tell the wonderful stories of each place. Each of the five playscapes “contains small fragments and stories about nature, animals, landscapes, geology, culture and much more. The aim is to inspire, arouse children’s and adults’ knowledge desire while creating space and opportunity for play and exercise.”

I will just offer the wee criticism that the playscape has far too much safety surfacing for my taste.  Though I understand its low-maintenance and clean-lined appeal in a public space like the one around this library, I sincerely hope that Denmark, with its historical acceptance of risk to achieve the reward of great play, isn’t adopting the over-regulation of surfaces that plagues playgrounds in America.  Push back, Denmark!

Also of interest is that the project was funded by the Herman Salling Foundation. This is part of a worldwide trend I’m seeing in which the most innovative and ambitious playgrounds are increasingly funded by foundations who are willing to take design risks that municipalities will not.   For a long time, foundations seemed more interested in playground quantity than in quality, and they often funded formulaic manufactured solutions.   Naturally, I am pleased as punch to see this change!

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Today’s post is a mashup of ThrowbackThursday and PlaySculptureSaturday, but that’s too long for a hashtag!  Thanks to reader Mark for sending me the link to this intriguing piece of recent play history:  the first time parkour was featured on television in 1997.  Beginning at :053, the clip shows the runners scaling Pierre Szekely’s monumental Dame du Lac sculpture between Evry and Courcouronnes, considered by many to be the birthplace of the new play sport.   Szekely completed the sculpture in 1975, incorporating many of the ideas he had worked out in smaller play sculpture installations (see this previous Playscapes post on his work).  Though the invention of Parkour was still years away, the forms of his sculpture seem to have perfectly anticipate the free form running-climbing-jumping-swinging that would be adopted on the site, and spread eventually throughout the world, including to other sculpted landscapes like those of Lawrence Halprin in the United States.  So is Pierre Szekely the real father of Parkour?  A playful question to ponder on your Saturday.

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For #TBT, a couple of images from a trippy, futuristic playground installed at a garden show in Vienna Austria in 1974 that seems to combine a playhouse/slide with a boatable lake! Note also the playscape of rounded white hills in the background. I could find very little information on this playscape (do get in touch if you know more), but I came across it while doing some research into Germany’s spectacular tradition of garden shows. I’m coming to the conclusion that one of the factors in the advanced development of the playground art in Germany and nearby countries is the importance of these shows, and the inclusion of large playgrounds in them. Innovative designs are displayed every year and visited by tens of thousands of professionals and parents alike, thus disseminating new ideas and high standards for design throughout the country. There is no equivalent tradition here in the United States. Watch for more from the great Gartenschauen over the next few weeks!

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Heritage Museums & Gardens on Cape Cod offers something for everyone: botanic gardens, a vintage carousel, historic cars, a meditation labyrinth, and a natural playscape called Hidden Hollow (I wrote about it here). Art and nature are combined in this summer’s “Secret Shelters” exhibit, in which artists were challenged to create a space for observing nature, writing poetry, meditating, or resting. I’ll share three of my favorite installations here, and in my next post, I’ll talk about the Secret Shelter I built with artist Ross Miller.

Wing’s Spire by artist Nancy Winship Milliken, is a tall pyramid draped in sheep’s wool. Two hundred years ago, Heritage was farmland owned by the Wing family, and this evocative sculpture pays respect to the idea of agriculture, as well as its textures and smells.

Squeezing through the reclaimed wooden doorway, the heady scent of sheep’s wool fills your nostrils. You can imagine farm kids ducking into a dark corner of a barn to escape the sun, or their chores.

Yugon Kim, an architect and sculptor with the design firm ikd, inverted the typical tree bench by making it face the tree.

Waste wood from timber manufacturing has been glued and nailed into square blocks, forming a gorgeous structure that prompts climbing, hiding, sitting, lying down, and reconsidering the nature of wood. The sculpture is called Outside-In.

Mary-Ann Agresti’s Please Be Seated is a more theatrical work, with two set pieces. Platforms and steps are semi-enclosed by planks (again, reclaimed wood) with peep-holes. A kid-sized chair, a croquet stake, and tiny doors encourage exploration and storytelling. Like Yugon Kim, Mary-Ann Agresti is an architect and an artist, and uses both talents to craft engaging spaces.

Quotes from Alice in Wonderland contribute to the feeling that you’ve entered a fantasy world where a peculiar creature might poke its head around the corner at any moment.

“Secret Shelters” includes six other installations, and will be on view through October 15, 2015. More info here. If you like to climb trees in a high-ropes kind of way, check out the Adventure Park at Heritage.

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One of those delightful Gartenschau playgrounds is the “Lizard Country” constructed by ZimmerObst in Rathenow, Germany for one of the 2015 BUGA regional shows.  ZimmerObst (apologies in advance for the low-res photos from their website)  were responsible for construction on the previously posted Modern Castle Playground in Zulpich, and they’ve used similar faceting to add to the playability of the lizard’s body in this install.   Lizards, snakes and dragons are no stranger to the playground, but I particularly like how this design allows the creature’s body to essentially become the *entire* playscape, rather than just one element in it, as it bends and twists throughout the playable space.    The lizard’s tongue is a slide, and its tail has jets of water.  At points where it’s body appears to dip above or beneath the sand (note:  NOT rubber safety surfacing), rope and bridge features add climbable connectivity.

One of the best things about the garden show tradition in Germany is that the playgrounds constructed for the show generally stay in place, becoming a permanent addition to the landscape of the host city.  It’s a great overlap of interests between private capital and public works:  the garden show gets a crowd-pleasing, audience-increasing feature for the duration of the show (sometimes as long as 6 months), and the municipality gets a high-quality, design-focused playscape ever after.  If any of my Deutsch readers can tell me how the financing of this works, I’d love to know more.

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Basurama Brasil’s latest playful resurrection of recyclables is open for play at the Casa Daros Museum Rio, “for children under 99 years old”!  Reminiscent of the Lions’ Park playscape by Rural Studio in Alabama,  it takes oil barrel-based construction a bit further by enlivening a selection of 200 of them with punchy colors and creative patterns, and adding tent-like roofs made from obsolete museum banners by Argentinian artist Fabian Marcaccio.   I love the addition of nets, too,  which are such an easy way to make any self-constructed playscape even more playable.  If you are so lucky as to be in Rio, you can visit and play until November 15th.

The post Gatos Recycled Playground, Basurama, Rio de Janeiro, 2015 appeared first on Playscapes.

I’ve never been a fan of the “bouncy castle” genre of temporary play installations, so it’s exciting to see the new company PneuHaus (founded in 2013 by designers Matthew Muller and August Lehrecke) re-interpreting the playable inflatable by draping two types of nets– loosely woven for climbing and tightly woven for sitting–over giant air-filled columns.  It’s Burning Man, so grown-ups at play, but I’d love to see kids get a chance at this Playascape.

Also don’t miss their Pneumatic Masonry (last 2 photos), which is like a temporary, air-filled version of the bubble climbers of Peter Pearce from the 1970s and 1980s.   Very interesting ideas here…I’ll be watching, PneuHaus! (and thanks to Chris for the tip!)

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Paige’s Note:  As I try to again ease back into posting after an intensive focus on my other life in science (aka, the Alternate Universe), I’m pleased to present Susan Solomon’s latest After the Deadline column with thoughts on the Superkilen: a rebellious public space in best-city-for-play Copenhagen.  I’ve never featured it on the blog, not because I didn’t know about it, but because I doubted it.  It’s undeniably photogenic (and I was excited to see a Japanese play octopus, one of the first sculptural pieces I featured on Playscapes)  but I wondered whether the self-conscious settings translated to a good experience on the ground for either pedestrians or players.  I’ve never had the opportunity to visit, but Susan Solomon has, and her analysis confirms my concerns that this playful public space was designed more for visual effect than for visitor experience; a disservice to the residents it was supposed to serve.  And it is of historical interest to me that Superkilen’s heavy-handed, top-down design approach was implemented in a neighborhood that once fought a losing “playground war”  to retain a self-built, community constructed adventure playground.  Times have clearly changed.  

Lessons from Superkilen, Copenhagen, by Susan G. Solomon

I worry about public space that is captured in images that are “too good to be true.”  Such is the case with Superkilen, an urban linear park in Copenhagen.  And like the old adage, the on-the-ground experience is not as good as the photos.   When I saw it this past summer, I came away thinking that Superkilen is a wonderfully photogenic one-kilometer long stretch, one that sadly does not live up to its promise. It’s a pity the results are not more positive because millions of people are already familiar with it (they might not know its name) thanks to an iPhone ad that placed it on magazine covers and billboards this past spring. Readers might remember the dramatic images of white squiggly lines on an undulating black surface.  The cost of Superkilen- over $8 million-compounds my feeling of unease.

The results are all the more dispiriting because heartfelt intentions underlay the Superkilen concept.  It represents a potent belief that design can ameliorate social shortcomings and foster community.   Creating Superkilen was an attempt to improve the everyday life of newcomers who have arrived in Copenhagen over the past decade.  Many are poor and live jammed together in the roughest area of the city, Nørrebro  (although to American eyes this neighborhood appears much more benign than inner cities in the USA and there is at least one street, previously notorious for killings and crime, which now hosts upscale restaurants). Superkilen was introduced as a respite space, a series of outdoor hubs where local residents could gather.

The city and a non-profit corporation, Realdania (based on a mortgage credit association), sponsored a competition for this site in 2007.  The program called for solutions that emphasize the diversity of the neighborhood, reputed to house over 50 nationalities.  The goal was to make immigrants feel more at home by evoking their memories of where they had grown up.  The winning team is extremely talented and distinguished: architects BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group); the landscape architecture firm Topotek1; the participatory artists of Superflex.   Their solution was to have three “zones” that melded into each other horizontally: a Red Square; a Black Market; and a Green Park.  The most touted intervention was the importation or replication of objects that the local residents suggested to reflect their earlier lives. Eighty-two objects are meant to convince the recently arrived neighbors that Copenhagen could be “home.”

I found the Red Square and the Black Market to be deeply disturbing solutions.  The Red Square is a flat expanse of asphalt with a polyurethane coating. Several shades of red do not relieve the unrelenting openness of this area, which is possibly slippery when wet.  It is difficult to maintain this surface which already appears faded, dirty and uninviting.  The Black Market is not quite as disappointing because the asphalt has an aggregate of black stone and its stripes of white road paint are more durable.  Even though there are changes of elevation and some hills, these do not temper the unyielding flatness of this empty urban space.  The irony is the bike path, which traverses Superkilen, originates in a leafy, well-shaded adjacent linear park.  The old bike path has twists and turns; the surrounding park contains lots of flat grass on which people can gather.  I understand that the designers of Superkilen wanted to escape this old model yet their new creation lacks the equivalent of the intimate and welcoming areas of the adjacent predecessor.

The Danes have a specific cultural value, hygge.  Englishman Michael Booth, in an interesting book on Scandinavia, devotes a whole (largely negative) chapter to it.  Hygge does not have an exact English translation.  It appears to mean “cozy’ with an implication that denotes intimate, simple, unfussy, authentic. (the Yiddish word haimische – or “homelike”- might be similar).  Booth argues that what may appear as positive attributes can be seen often as exclusive and exclusionary. The problem is the designers have not replaced hygge with something more vital that engages the local community and allows them to feel at ease in public.

The curated objects of Superkilen are what really infuriated me.  The exception is the Octopus play structure that I like very much.  It recreates a beloved object from a Tokyo suburb.  I applaud its Darth Vader type gloominess that rises up from the surfacing; at the same time it affords many opportunities for exploring its deep crevices and spooky interior.  Its curvilinear openings and semi-concealed slides recall the robust abstract sculptures that Egon Møller-Nielsen created in Sweden after World War II.

The rest of the objects- things like a Moroccan tile fountain or Iranian circular swings- are isolated relics.   Brett Bloom, an artist and vocal critic of Superkilen, notes that these objects are displayed like “museum” gems without a context.  He further states that daily removal of graffiti adds to the sterile affect.  I agree.  While the red surfacing looks unappealing aesthetically because it is now bland, the presence of graffiti might reveal layers of activity and an interaction between users and their environment.

I would suggest, too, that the objects might reflect a superficial way to engage potential users.  The designers spent time asking residents what they wanted to have that recalled their homelands.  I wonder if the designers asked additional, probing questions, such as what experiences did these people have and what did they like best about their old hometowns. I wonder if the design team ever asked themselves, why did the Moroccan residents want a polygonal tiled fountain? Did they want to recall a soothing place to gather?  Did they like shapes that encourage interaction among those sitting there?  Did they like shiny surfaces that enhance the sense of calm and beauty and reflect their sunny landscape?  Plopping down a foreign object is a trite gesture; really talking to people about what they miss and crave might have led the designers to more profound and more exciting solutions.

There is clearly an analogy with what we ask children about what they want in their playground.  Do they want a swing because that is what they have seen or do they want something that will enable them to go fast and high? Do they want a slide because they know they exist in other playgrounds or do they really want a vehicle for moving quickly form high to low and perhaps defying gravity by climbing up instead of sliding down?  We, as advocates for play and for public spaces for all, have to demand a similar type of investigating in order to have the most effective results.

Superkilen offers lessons to us but they are frequently not the ones we need in order to achieve centers of community. I regret that it sets a wrong path on how to improve public recreation venues.

The post Lessons from Superkilen, Copenhagen by Susan Solomon appeared first on Playscapes.

The international design firm HASSELL recently teamed up with non-profit Archikidz and Sydney Living Museums to create PLAY[ground], a three day destination event in the in the heart of Sydney.  A sell-out crowd visited over three days to swing, climb,  crawl, tunnel, jump and connect.  A free but ticketed event, PLAY[ground] reached capacity before the gates even opened. Six thousand people – including 4,000 children – attended over the course of the three-day installation that was part of the 2015 VIVID Sydney festival.”

“The Archikidz brief called for a single playground. But, after testing early plans with a group of children, HASSELL created a collection of interactive installations to inspire different types of outdoor play. Kids were diving into multi-coloured ball pools, shimmying up ropes, and running through the maze of plants and a forest of multi-coloured ribbons made from old parachutes. Retired sailing spinnakers and timber palettes were given new life as platforms for kids to swing on, climb through, crawl under and jump off.  At the end of it all, everything was repurposed, returned or recycled – accomplishing the ultimate low cost, low impact event at the heritage-listed barracks.”

Great design and great fun, of course, but I love that the goals of this project went beyond “just” play.  The team wanted to “make kids seen and heart in the city”, and in so doing inspire city makers to think creatively about the future of cities:  what makes them great, and what makes them playable.   Too many play advocates just wave their hands vaguely and cry “let the children play!”  But more rigorous and expansive thinking is required to build a playful future, to see play as both an end in itself AND a means that helps us understand and build community.

“The program for PLAY[ground] included a number of free workshops about city-making and the built environment. Kids, families and friends immersed themselves in green wall workshops with specialists, Junglefy, drew their visions for the future city, and experimented with new ways of travelling through the city with parkour lessons.

Kids shared their thoughts about how they would make cities more liveable and fun in the HASSELL ‘Little House: Big ideas’ – a wooden cubby house in the middle of PLAY[ground]. While there were plenty of references to jet packs and robots, many kids spoke about the importance of green space, how living in an apartment allows you to make the most of the city, and new types of environmentally-friendly transport they would like to see ‘when they grow up’.

“The legacy of PLAY[ground] lives on…the green wall created by Junglefy with hundreds of kids and their parents will be installed in its permanent location at Ultimo Community Centre very soon. The parkour equipment has a new home at Pyrmont Community Centre, and will soon become a new location for the boys from Jump Squad HQ to run parkour workshops.”

Collaborators: Archikidz, Sydney Living Museums, Junglefy, Andreasens Green, Design Landscape, Innov8 Access, JumpSquad, Imprint Acoustics
Photography: James Horan, Vin Rathod, HASSELL

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Seeking artists for a climbable, playable sculpture to be part of a new playscape in Miami, Florida!  Local or Florida artists preferred, but others are welcome to submit as well.  Send me (arcadyatcoxdotnet) some information about yourself and either images or links to your work, and a quick draft concept that would fit within a roughly $80,000 total commission!  DEADLINE: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2015.

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The deadline is approaching for teams to register to design an innovative play space for a public school, library, and recreational center in Philadelphia! Note that “Multidisciplinary, integrated teams must have at least one licensed landscape architect, architect, or civil engineer”, and it does cost $300 to enter.

DEADLINE:  November 30, 2015!

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Things I’d like to see on the playground…in my ongoing quest to inspire more use of reflective and chromatic surfaces–optically active stuff–on the playground I’m inspired by the holiday commission for the Flatiron district in New York City:  a grown-up playhouse, really, that features kaleidoscopic facets and sound-responsive LEDs.   The color effects come from the use of 3M Dichroic film on the interior; a relatively inexpensive material that playscape designers should be using!   Another great feature of Nova is the apertures in the exterior that frame iconic landmarks of the neighborhood.  Playgrounds should always PLAY LOCAL by including unique aspects of their site’s history and surroundings, and adding intentional viewpoints to other urban features is a great way to do this.  The Nova installation is by SOFTLab, commissioned by the Van Alen Institute, and it’s temporary, so make sure you experience it before Christmas!

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For the past six months, the Central Park Conservancy (CPC) has been renovating two of Central Park’s most well-known playgrounds: Adventure Playground and the East 72^nd Street Playground, both adventure-style playgrounds designed by the architect Richard Dattner. (Adventure was opened in 1967; East 72^nd Street Playground in 1970). The East 72^nd Street Playground reopened on October 15 and Adventure Playground will open later in November. These projects are part of CPC’s campaign to renovate or rebuild all of Central Park’s twenty-one playgrounds, described in the planning document, Plan for Play.www.planforplay.org

There are five adventure-style playgrounds in Central Park, and these are some of the few that remain from the 1960s and ‘70s. (I am working on a book about these playgrounds in Central Park so this will be a topic of subsequent posts.) A brief description of a couple of the more significant changes to the East 72^nd Street Playground is an opportunity to introduce CPC’s approach to renovating and updating these unique playgrounds, which they have developed over a period of almost-twenty years. The East 72^nd Street Playground was last renovated in 2001, a project that mainly involved replacing deteriorated wooden play structures. This recent project followed the goals of Plan for Play to address design standards, improve the connection to the park, increase and enhance play opportunities, and, particularly relevant to the adventure-style playgrounds, “to preserve unique and successful aspects of existing designs.” The renovation was designed by CPC’s Department of Planning, Design, and Construction, a team of landscape architects, planners, and engineers that design and oversee all restoration projects in Central Park, and they consulted Richard Dattner during the design process.

View of the playground in 1979. In addition to concrete structures, the playground included tire swings and wood climbing structures.

East 72^nd Playground was the fourth playground Dattner designed for Central Park and it includes many of the features that mark his style: a climbing pyramid, an elaborate water feature, and a low concrete wall that encloses the play space, along with wooden play structures and tire swings.   Those familiar with the playground may enter the newly-renovated playground initially perceiving little change, and this is one of the desired outcomes. All of these features mentioned above are still present, but closer inspection reveals that they have been rebuilt, reconfigured, or replaced; in fact, quite a lot has changed.

Playground prior to construction.

A similar view following the renovation.

The most prominent feature in the playground is a large, maze-like construction in concrete, part of which Dattner designed for water play. It includes a small sunken plaza into which water sprayed from a concrete pier, connected to an upper level plaza via a ramp and stairs. During this project, the entire feature was redesigned and rebuilt, to make it accessible for users with disabilities and upgrade the water infrastructure (which had not been updated since it was first created in the 1930s), but also to animate the space and increase opportunities for water play. CPC retained the original water play area and introduced two additional water sprays, one on the upper level plaza and the other in a paved area below it. The water is activated through a bollard and engineered so that it flows along the ramp that connects the three spaces.

Main play and water feature under construction.

Diagram illustrating the water spray elements and water flow.

Another significant alteration was made to the perimeter of the playground. Dattner’s 1972 design was created within the oval-shaped footprint of the pre-existing playground that had been built during the 1930s. Within this oval, Dattner delineated the main play space with a low concrete wall that followed a strong, angular geometry. Beyond the wall, following the fence line, was a row of benches. CPC redesigned the wall to become the main boundary of the playground, reinforcing the striking lines that characterize this playground—also very forceful in the water feature—while also alleviating the strong division between the playground and the Park. The shape of the new wall allowed for the creation of an expanded planting bed surrounding the playground that also enters the space at the various corners of the angular wall. Within this bed a low and transparent landscape fence was installed to secure the playground. The wall also integrates benches and can be used for seating itself, adding to the cohesion of the overall design.

Illustrative plan of revised footprint and wall configuration

View from outside the playground, showing landscape fence and new plantings.

The adventure-style playgrounds built in the 1960s and ‘70s were exceptional in part because they were the result of a more environmental approach to playground design, deemed in its time “a playground revolution.” A cohesive design consisting primarily of interconnected, sited-constructed forms was intended to provide a more challenging and interactive play experience than was possible on a playground with traditional, standalone equipment. The recent renovation of the East 72^nd Street Playground aimed to preserve and enhance its defining features while also engaging the landscape beyond the playground, with the ultimate goal of creating a unique and dynamic play experience in Central Park.

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While I love to feature high-design projects like the Nova, there is always a special place in my heart for the small and inexpensive, and low-cost projects can (and should!) be just as visually appealing as any grand design.

The playscape designed by Indian design firm Gudgudee  for the Research Society – Jai Vakeel School for children in need of Special Care, Mumbai, India fits the bill:  it has been dubbed “Chiri Chiriyo”,  which means laughter of a child in Malayalam language.

In quite a small space, Gudgudee has installed a sensory landscape with great local texture: bamboo chimes from local Maharashtrian craftsmen (who usually carve out flutes) and copper bells in different sizes and resonances from Kutch region of Gujarat.  Setting both these items into colorful, geometric metal frames adds significantly to the visual character of the space.    Convex mirrors–like those used for store security–are readily available, inexpensive, and add that optical element I’m always looking for in playgrounds.   There are also foot-friendly tactile pavers, and an interactive wall organizes the space and provides a focal visual element.  I like the fact that its top surface is smooth for climbing and sliding.  The niches and cutouts make individual hide-outs as well as enabling simple games that improve fine motor skills like passing ropes through the holes.

Well done, Gudgudee!  I’m always excited to see new design firms get into play, and I look forward to more interesting work from you.

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Modernist urban planning has traditionally liked to see the designation of land use in the form of a single program (housing, commercial, cultural, ludic etc.). We are used to seeing playgrounds as autonomous spaces in the city demarcated by fences or vegetation. Areas of separation rather than inclusion. Rarely do we see overlapping urban programs in these spaces, especially since children are concerned. This is why it was surprising to come across this structure in Beersheba’s Gimel neighborhood.

 I have not managed to find out who designed it or when exactly it was built , but its particular form and purpose were so clear and so intriguing that I decided a short piece should be written about it. Further research is definitely needed, not only about this structure, but about play design in Beersheba in general.

The structure stands near some sports fields and about a hundred meters from the nearest building blocs. Within this mysterious truncated boxlike structure are hidden both the electrical switchboards which control the lighting of the fields as well as a storage room. The structure itself is made completely out of concrete and although it looks a bit drab it is in rather good condition. There is a set of stairs which run up to the roof of the structure out of which, at two points, slides emerge. At its highest point are perched three concrete seats. One can imagine these to be used either by parents supervising their children or by teens looking for a place to hang out with a good vantage point of the area. The two slides enable the use by various different age groups and could enable different types of games and competitions to develop on them.

The sandboxes at the foot of the structure no longer have sand in them and seem rather harsh at the moment.  One can see that they have been designed on different levels which can enable different games to develop on site. It would be great if this type of structure could be revamped and reused once again. This playspace seems a good example of how we can integrate infrastructure or other uses in general, into and as part of our playgrounds.

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This is the third year for Playscapes’  series of blocks inspired by heroes of  play, and I’m pleased to announce the 2015 edition honoring the great sculptor Isamu Noguchi!  As early as 1933, Noguchi was designing sculpted landforms for children’s play when the rest of the world had only recently come to acknowledge the swing and the slide.  His grandest conceptions (like the surrealist playscape for the United Nations building) were never realized, though his smaller play sculptures and equipment were.  Nevertheless, Noguchi’s influence can be felt in virtually every site that can truly be termed a playscape.  He was the first–and for a long time the only–designer to understand that spaces for play should be fully realized and non-flat landscapes rather than simplistic sets of equipment.

Artist and artisan Jen Bulthuis of Fidoodle has designed the Noguchi blocks that you can arrange endless configurations of the Noguchi play works and children at play.  Perfect for kids from 3-99!

I’ll be saying much more about Noguchi and his play designs as the days count down to a new year, but from now until the end of the week (December 5), enter PLAYNOGUCHI during checkout at the Playscapes online store to get 25% off your set!   The 2013 (Aldo van Eyck) and 2014 (Theodor Sorenson) editions are available there as well.

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I’ve posted a few photos of Cuban playgrounds before, and like other aspects of the island they are at once both past and present, trapped in time.  C. 1950s playgrounds have been the most likely future, too, but I’m excited that great new things are on the verge of happening in Cuba!  Playscapes friend Chris Wangro is producing an international music festival that will leave something beautiful behind when it packs up and goes home:   a contemporary playground for the community.  The photos in this post are his reconnaisance of the ‘as-is’ state of play in Cuba:  heavy metal swings and teeter-totters (also seen across Eastern Europe) are the playground version of repetitive Stalinist architecture, but some nameless designer was reaching for something greater in the lightning bolts of a constructivist-style concrete basketball stadium.   I’m intrigued that at least one of the sites Chris found aspired to be a true playscape:  a cohesive designed landscape with benches and lights and nice serpentine paths surround the play equipment.  Even in disrepair it seems like a pleasant place to be (and note the vintage car in the back of the photo)!

But most inspirational in thinking towards new places for play in Cuba is the beauty of play as it is found, as children make it themselves, seen against a backdrop of cloudy, ethereal decay.  The decay cannot be so beautiful to those who reside in it as it is to those of us who see it from our tidy lives afar, but the play crosses all boundaries of time, geography and even politics in its appeal.  It is play-as-hope, play-as-freedom.

[If you’re interested in being a part of the Cuba project drop me an email.  Potential funders/providers particularly welcome!]

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When I spoke at Sheffield’s Site Gallery in 2014, Anna van Lingen and Denisa Kollarová were also on the slate to discuss their project examining seventeen of Aldo van Eyck’s remaining playgrounds in Amsterdam.   Their talk, below, has unique contemporary footage and ind-depth discussion of the site’s elements, and their book entitled “Aldo Van Eyck, Seventeen Playgrounds”, is now available for pre-order at the reduced price of 15 euro!  Email info@annavanlingen.com with your name, address, and number of copies by January 25 to take advantage of the offer.

“Aldo van Eyck, Seventeen Playgrounds is a pocket size tour guide that brings you to seventeen remaining playgrounds in the centre of Amsterdam. While you are moving from one playground to the next, you will get to know more about the city, Aldo van Eyck and his ideas about designing for children…An important aspect of his design is his strive to stimulate the imagination and ingenuity of the child, which is visible in the minimalistic shapes of the play equipment.

Throughout the years van Eyck developed a web of over seven hundred playgrounds scattered across the city, in order to give children their own recognizable domain. Of these hundreds of playgrounds you nowadays only find a few remaining play elements that have to share their space with colorful slides and swings, many have completely disappeared and only few playgrounds are still intact. ”

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“Within humanitarian responses, programmatically, children often become invisible” (Marc Sommers).  Sadly, this is true of many of society’s responses, not just  humanitarian ones.  But CatalyticAction, a non-profit design studio that works internationally, is “intervening with projects that catalyse change in society”.  I’m pleased that they recognize play–particularly children’s play–as one of the things that catalyses change!

Their “Ibtasem” playground in Bar Elias, Lebanon–a city that hosts about 150,000 Syrian refugees–was constructed after an extensive design consultation with the camp’s children.  Out of these sessions grew a plan for a modular playscape–easy to raise, easy to strike–whose spaces allow for both active and quiet play.  Locally sourced materials used for the construction can be recycled when the refugee camp is no longer necessary, and the children participated in some elements of the build.

I particularly like the way CatalyticAction’s design mingles sport and play; too often the sporting field and the playground seem to be spatial enemies, and this is unnecessary (see also the integration of basketball in this Bankok playscape by Tyin Tegnestue).    The modular spaces of the climbing frame provide easy spectator space for a game of basketball on the attached court; a perfect way to gather multiple generations in mutual enjoyment of the play space.

And there’s a roof made of vegetable crates that will soon grow over with jasmine. Because playgrounds-should-not-be-deserts, even when they are in one.

I love to see great design in difficult conditions!  CatalyticAction, who raised funds for the playground via indiegogo and partnered with Arup for the engineering,  plans to expand and perfect their ideas at other sites in Lebanon.

“Through rigorous design practices, community engagement and understanding the specificities of different contexts, we are working to better the lives of marginalised and disadvantaged groups in different global settings. We work with communities to deliver projects that they can go on to sustain themselves; integrating our design and architectural skills with our experience in participatory engagement to bring about positive transformations. We endeavour to challenge the status-quo, where marginalised groups can become dependent on long term aid, and instead work to produce self-sufficient and strong communities.

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Architecture’s top prize for 2016 has been awarded to Alejandro Aravena of Chile, executive director of Santiago-based ELEMENTAL, a “Do Tank,” (as opposed to a think tank…love that concept).  In the publicity heralding the prize, it has been heartening to see a playground prominently featured! I know of no other Pritzker prize winner whose body of work includes a playscape at all, much less a monumental children’s park with a hill of slides and a wall of play like ELEMENTAL designed for Santiago.  I previously featured the Bicentennial Children’s Park here on Playscapes in 2014, but here’s another look at it in honor of the prize; also don’t miss a video of it available on VIMEO (privacy settings won’t allow me to embed it).

As part of the adjudication process the Pritzker jury visits all the sites.   I hope that their visits, and the award itself, increase recognition within the architectural community that playgrounds are a significant part of the built environment and worthy of their best efforts.

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