I am trying to find enlightened material regarding the above, any ideas? It seems most of the crap I find is rather typical. I plan on thinking about this more because until I write and really think, searching on the net will give me nothing but playground equipment and playground design...
beta, have a look at the work of Aldo van Eyck, particularly in this book. There was an interesting thesis I saw that used some of van Eyck's ideas, although I can't quite recall the specifics.
It's strange how new playgrounds have evolved into linear, programmed obstacle courses. I miss the unstructured, imaginative play that came from those geodesic domes. They were baffling and intriguing -- without any explicit way to engage them -- do you climb them, hang from them, where do you put your feet? are they hills? dwellings? New playgrounds often seem to address competitive play, sensory play ... but don't really make a space ambiguous enough for fantasy play.
Anyway ... as far as an understanding of "play" itself -- for child psychology, at least -- I found Vivian Paley's books pretty enlightening. I picked them up after hearing her on This American Life. Here's an excerpt.
For a project -- we defined play as the "spontaneous appropriation of negative space." This heat transfer station by NL architects embodies that philosophy ...
This "alternative playground, located at the Berkeley Marina, is one of only two of its kind in the U.S. The outdoor community center is designed to allow children to construct their own play structures and experiment with tools and materials normally associated with professional carpenters." http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=20105
From what I understand, playground design is largely dictated by insurance requirements, binding the designers' hands.
However, David Rockwell has been working on playground design. Don't know if there's anything on his website yet. Might be worth a phone call to his office.
The office I used to work at did several playgrounds; it is frustrating since your hands are tied by ASTM standards, safety consultants and insurers. Often we would use some off the shelf components from well know playground manufacturers and the safety consultants would go nuts over "pinch points" and the like even though they were well within all the ASTM guidelines and already on every playground in the country.
I found a really amazing book on creative playgounds, but unfortunately it’s still at the office and I'm not and I have no idea what the title of the book was. The discouraging thing is that the book showed lots of amazing projects, but none of them where in the U.S. My favorite project was a playground in Germany that was just a folded plate, it made an ever increasing ramp that could be used for jumping, skating, etc, and then the underside became a crawl space. Very cool, but you could never do it in the states. Another outrageous one was in Japan, the whole thing was croqueted! It had balls and things hanging down in croqueted baskets, very trippy. With any luck public skate parks will bring some excitement back into American playgrounds.
Basically our litigious society has driven creativity out of our children’s playgrounds. The other problem being that many corporations are taking over areas that used to be part of the public realm such as playgrounds. McDonalds is now probably what many kids think of when they think of going to the playground. And those big corporations do NOT want to get sued, thus the crappy poorly made climbing tubes that look like space ships or have a big Lion’s head coming out of the top. (we always thought it was a tad ironic that the fast food joints made these 2 story crawling tubes that an overweight parent would have no prayer of crawling through.)
I believe most of the playgrounds I worked on are for the same corporation that Rockwell is working for, I saw some of the sketches from a couple years ago, not going to be anything ground breaking but it will be fun (and expensive.) My favorite recent thing I saw is a Kennedy & Violich kids museum, not sure where, but it had some interesting things in it.
Weird. What is that word, now? Chroquet chrochet chrocheted ... it's lost its meaning. One of them involves a bunch of little balls on a well manicured lawn.
Yup, that's the one. I can't find that original article though, could you post a link? Pretty amazing stuff, I had forgotten about the slide down the temple, that's awesome. Having fun and being sacrilegious at the same time!
D'oh, yes crochet like knitting, not a fried appetizer.
If you can find them , try looking at old images (70s-80s) of the Dennis the Menance parks. I was lucky enough to visit the original one in Monterey (CA) at an impressionable age. It was a mixture of movable, quasi-sculptural interactive steel structures and landscaping. As a 9 year old it was like a free trip to heaven. The park still exists but saftey codes have stripped it of its magic.
Jan 7, 06 2:00 am ·
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Play, Playgrounds, Recreation
I am trying to find enlightened material regarding the above, any ideas? It seems most of the crap I find is rather typical. I plan on thinking about this more because until I write and really think, searching on the net will give me nothing but playground equipment and playground design...
alice chun and students from UPENN design-built a nice structure for the above heading near philadelphia
check out the Reggio Emilia Education Philosophy...you may find it interesting.
beta, have a look at the work of Aldo van Eyck, particularly in this book. There was an interesting thesis I saw that used some of van Eyck's ideas, although I can't quite recall the specifics.
in short, it's an educational philosophy that has amazing architectural / spatial implications.
also, from this system came a book, the Meta-Project for an Environment for Young Children by a group of educators and an architect.
It's strange how new playgrounds have evolved into linear, programmed obstacle courses. I miss the unstructured, imaginative play that came from those geodesic domes. They were baffling and intriguing -- without any explicit way to engage them -- do you climb them, hang from them, where do you put your feet? are they hills? dwellings? New playgrounds often seem to address competitive play, sensory play ... but don't really make a space ambiguous enough for fantasy play.
Anyway ... as far as an understanding of "play" itself -- for child psychology, at least -- I found Vivian Paley's books pretty enlightening. I picked them up after hearing her on This American Life. Here's an excerpt.
The least "standard playground": B+B:s organic spray-concrete sculptures in Waldpark, Potsdam (Germany). B+B
For a project -- we defined play as the "spontaneous appropriation of negative space." This heat transfer station by NL architects embodies that philosophy ...
This "alternative playground, located at the Berkeley Marina, is one of only two of its kind in the U.S. The outdoor community center is designed to allow children to construct their own play structures and experiment with tools and materials normally associated with professional carpenters."
http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=20105
check out this book:
Norman, Nils.
An Architecture of Play: A Survey of London's Adventure Playgrounds.
Check the following books:
design for fun: playgrounds
great kid's spaces
www.linksbooks.net
From what I understand, playground design is largely dictated by insurance requirements, binding the designers' hands.
However, David Rockwell has been working on playground design. Don't know if there's anything on his website yet. Might be worth a phone call to his office.
The office I used to work at did several playgrounds; it is frustrating since your hands are tied by ASTM standards, safety consultants and insurers. Often we would use some off the shelf components from well know playground manufacturers and the safety consultants would go nuts over "pinch points" and the like even though they were well within all the ASTM guidelines and already on every playground in the country.
I found a really amazing book on creative playgounds, but unfortunately it’s still at the office and I'm not and I have no idea what the title of the book was. The discouraging thing is that the book showed lots of amazing projects, but none of them where in the U.S. My favorite project was a playground in Germany that was just a folded plate, it made an ever increasing ramp that could be used for jumping, skating, etc, and then the underside became a crawl space. Very cool, but you could never do it in the states. Another outrageous one was in Japan, the whole thing was croqueted! It had balls and things hanging down in croqueted baskets, very trippy. With any luck public skate parks will bring some excitement back into American playgrounds.
Basically our litigious society has driven creativity out of our children’s playgrounds. The other problem being that many corporations are taking over areas that used to be part of the public realm such as playgrounds. McDonalds is now probably what many kids think of when they think of going to the playground. And those big corporations do NOT want to get sued, thus the crappy poorly made climbing tubes that look like space ships or have a big Lion’s head coming out of the top. (we always thought it was a tad ironic that the fast food joints made these 2 story crawling tubes that an overweight parent would have no prayer of crawling through.)
I believe most of the playgrounds I worked on are for the same corporation that Rockwell is working for, I saw some of the sketches from a couple years ago, not going to be anything ground breaking but it will be fun (and expensive.) My favorite recent thing I saw is a Kennedy & Violich kids museum, not sure where, but it had some interesting things in it.
is this the croqueted one you meant? (the second one)
beyond the swing set (japan)
crochet?
Weird. What is that word, now? Chroquet chrochet chrocheted ... it's lost its meaning. One of them involves a bunch of little balls on a well manicured lawn.
Yup, that's the one. I can't find that original article though, could you post a link? Pretty amazing stuff, I had forgotten about the slide down the temple, that's awesome. Having fun and being sacrilegious at the same time!
D'oh, yes crochet like knitting, not a fried appetizer.
Was it an article, or just a slideshow?
Argh, NYTSelect.
Arrrgh, damn you Arthur Sulzberger Jr., damn you!
Just the slideshow. But still good stuff. (sorry Arthur)
If you can find them , try looking at old images (70s-80s) of the Dennis the Menance parks. I was lucky enough to visit the original one in Monterey (CA) at an impressionable age. It was a mixture of movable, quasi-sculptural interactive steel structures and landscaping. As a 9 year old it was like a free trip to heaven. The park still exists but saftey codes have stripped it of its magic.
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