...or architecture used to define play areas...

aldo van eyck's playgrounds are a good place to start, as well as hertzberger

tezuka, kindergarten in fuji


rcr arquitectos, els colors

crown fountain, chicago

perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but parts of it may apply.

this is always one of the most enjoyable places to people watch

i saw Stoss L/U lecture recently. the principal presented this playground project: metis

also, Ken Smith did this playground-esque space in Queens:
Learning Garden for P.S. 19

Thanks guys.

Those are all very interesting.

FOG Lite, that blog is great!

I find this slideshow pretty inspiring - play spaces in Japan. I really like the materiality of the first slide.

this firm Bureau B+B has some really beautiful play spaces - under "green space" the Waldpark Potsdam project and Looking for Jane are so cool.

... also I've always wanted to do an adventure playground!!! but it always seems too dangerous...

Jersey Devil's designed and built an awesome slide but I can't find any images on the internets.

In San Francisco there's an old pair of concrete slides that even giddy adults use.

also reminds me of the Picasso Sculpture in Chicago's Daley Plaza. There's almost always kids sliding the canted bottom portion.

more art installation than playground, anyone who builds a slide that big can't be all bad though.

I love this project from KapteinRoodnat.

Also, these look like a ton of fun.

although he didn't manage to get many of them built,
Noguchi had some great designs.

Check out Imagination Playground

hi kalyani!

kahn did some killer playground designs

with the Noguch even

The more I read about this stuff, the more depressed I become. My client is set on traditional, out-of-the-box play equipment yet I'm finding that the best playgrounds have very little of this.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to approach the client on this issue?

yeah, sigh

the out of the box, LSI stuff is much lawsuit safer.

I'd approach it from the cost angle....natural playgrounds are dirt (no pun intended) cheap when compared to out-of-the-box equipment, which like ladders have liability-expenses built in as part of their inflated price. It doesn't get less expensive than sand, natural limbs, and rocks. This cost-of-potential-lawsuit factor makes even specially designed playground components comparable and perhaps cheaper than the big-box solutions of corporate providers.

There's also a huge disconnect between what childhood development researchers say is good for children on a playground, and what the playground corporations produce. Perhaps your client would be swayed by the actual research studies, which are quite googlable.

hi mdler! still doing yoga?

I came across this thread and thought a project of ours may be of interest. Garden City Play environment opened last week and it looks like it is a hit with the kids. The city of Richmond BC hired us looking to create a more engaging play environment that was a departure from the typical safety surfacing filled with equipment from a catalogue.

The park includes some large old growth cedar logs and climbing structure from salvaged old growth tree limbs to help add some character from the region. We also have a central water feature and even a small skate spot. On our project website there is an interesting video prepared by a local cable tv station that looks into some of the play research that influenced the park (the second video if you scroll down the page).

http://space2place.com/public_garden-city.html

Very nice jcutler!