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DOKK1, Literate Playground, Monstrum, Århus Denmark, 2015
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...
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Parkour’s First Appearance on Television in 1997
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...
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#TBT Futuristic Garden Show Playground, 1974, Vienna Austria
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...
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Secret Shelters at Heritage Museums & Gardens, Sandwich, Mass., 2015
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...
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Lizard Country, Rathenow Germany, ZimmerObst, 2015
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...
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Gatos Recycled Playground, Basurama, Rio de Janeiro, 2015
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...
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Inflatable Playascape, PneuHaus, Burning Man 2015
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)...
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Lessons from Superkilen, Copenhagen by Susan Solomon
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...
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PLAY[ground] for Vivid Sydney, 2015
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...
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Call for Artists…Miami, Florida Playscape
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...
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Call for Entrants….Philadelphia Play Space Design Competition!
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...
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Nova Kaleidoscope Playhouse, SOFTlab, New York City, December 2015
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...
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A Newly Renovated Adventure-style Playground in Central Park
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 72nd Street Playground, both...
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Sensory Playscape, Gudgudee, Mumbai, India, 2015
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...
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Beersheba’s Electrical Slides
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...
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Announcing the 2015 Play Hero Blocks honoring Isamu Noguchi!
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...
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Play in Cuba: Past, Present, and Future
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...
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“Aldo van Eyck, Seventeen Playgrounds” by Anna van Lingen and Denisa Kollarová
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...
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Ibtasem Playground for Syrian Refugee Children, CatalyticAction, 2015
“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...
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Playgrounds and the Pritzker Prize
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...
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