New York City- and Rome-based architecture and design studio Architensions has created an interior playground in Brooklyn that mixes and matches visual and formal references in order to create a space that blends "imagination, cognitive development, and aesthetic appeal."

The 875-square-foot project was created for a wellness professional who blends yoga and childcare, and is designed as "an indoor environment for creative, collective play for a small group of children," Alessandro Orsini, Architensions co-principal, explains in a statement. 

The play space draws inspiration from great works of children's architecture, including Isamu Noguchi’s “Contoured Playground” and Aldo van Eyck’s Amsterdam playscapes, while also hearkening to childhood memories of "woodland forts, dappled light streaming through trees, and the glow of the sun reflecting off of snow," according to the designers. 

Organized as a series of sculptural pavilions overseen by an abstracted cloud installation, the playscape includes jaunty portholes and interior windows that establish visual connections between each of the discrete structures. Framed by serial plywood and lumber sections studded with arches, vaults, and thresholds, the skeletal pavilions also dematerialize to reveal their elemental construction. 

Each of the three pavilions, one round, one semi-circular, and another platform-based, is geared toward producing different sensory effects by their users that "inspire both comfort and exploration in children." 

Nick Roseboro, Architensions co-principal explains that “The indoor architecture became an internalized landscape of events aimed at simulating the change of season or the effect of the light through snow. This environment allows them to assume different body postures, to create boundaries, and to manipulate and re-invent their surroundings.”