Month: April 2015
From Skater to Schematics: How Elger Blitz Turned His Hobby Into Worldwide Success
Photo via Yohan Creemers It didn’t take much digging to find that world premiere playground designer and design lecturer Elger Blitz has been making waves for over 25 years. From his humble beginnings on the gritty streets of Amsterdam, Blitz learned to appreciate and manipulate the world around him into being a place where people of…
ASD-Friendly Play: Choosing a Playground for Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder
April 1, 2015 marked a historic first. It was the first time in the history of the U.S. that a president officially declared World Autism Awareness Day complete with festivities, $1.3 billion in federal funding to further ASD and related brain research, and a declaration with a Presidential Seal. “On World Autism Awareness Day,…
The 10 Most Beautiful and Artistic Playgrounds in the World
Playgrounds are about so much more than swings and slides. No matter your age, there is something breathtaking about a playground that is designed for beauty as well as interaction. And, of course, the U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on artistic concepts of play. Around the world, top-level designers are building playgrounds…
Are Playgrounds the Antidote to Digital Overload?
It’s hard to imagine a world where people weren’t actively talking, texting, and tweeting on digital devices. And yet, when we think of the “phone-bound,” we tend to imagine a horde of teens over-anxious to grow up. The truth is that children as young as six years old are being overexposed…
San Jose Rotary Playgarden: Bringing Families Together Through Innovation
When you think of a playground, you might imagine kids running across bridges, shimmying down twisty poles, and soaring on swings. What you might not immediately consider is what the thousands of physically-challenged children do at a traditional playground. The answer is, not a lot. It was not long ago…
Robin Moore: Connecting Families to Nature and Each Other Through Play
“Landscape architects are a crucial partner in creating new types of landscapes to support active, outdoor lifestyles in childhood.” – Robin Moore (“The New Nature Movement,” Children & Nature Network) Playgrounds have changed a lot in the last 50 years. They are no longer stark metal islands in seas of barren…
