Most of your holiday shopping is done, right? Or maybe it isn’t. At Goric, we’ve decided to devote this week’s blog to helping you find gifts for the nature lovers… Read more »
Yearly Archives: 2017
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum: Inside the Home of a Legendary Social Reformer and Play Advocate
Just off Halsted Avenue, on the campus of the University of Illinois Chicago, sits the Hull House, an unassuming, low-gabled brick building that was once the private home of Jane… Read more »
Giving Thanks To Our Nation’s Best Parks and Recreation Departments
Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on the people and places that bring meaning to our lives. At Goric, we’d like to recognize the holiday by expressing our appreciation for… Read more »
Playground Shade: A Matter of Necessity
Shade is an integral, if undervalued, aspect of playground design. Some of the best playgrounds earn their distinction because they offer a range of sun-protected areas where children can play… Read more »
Because It Is There: Six Trends in Playground Climbing Structures
In a 1923 interview with a New York Times reporter, Himalayan mountain climber George Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest. His famous response, “because it is there,”… Read more »
The Vestibular System: The Sixth Sense of Playground Design
Several weeks ago, at the ASLA conference in Los Angeles, Greg Miller, principal landscape architect at MRWM, and Lucy Miller, founder and director at the STAR institute for Sensory Processing… Read more »
Dancer Giveaway: Come Dance with Goric at ASLA LA 2017
Common Ground, this year’s theme for the American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) 2017 Annual Meeting and EXPO, October 20-23, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, casts… Read more »
The Benefits of Learning Through Play for Children with ADHD
There is a tendency for society to draw a line between work and play, but for many kids this is simply impossible. Studies suggest that time spent playing outdoors increases… Read more »
L.A.’s 9 Best Playgrounds
Los Angeles is known for fast cars, great beaches, Hollywood celebrities, and beloved musicians, such as the late-Tom Petty. Its parks and playgrounds may be less front and center in… Read more »
Twelve Years Later: Revisiting Susan Solomon’s Call to Revitalize American Playgrounds
The book American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space, by writer and architectural historian Susan Solomon, opens with a scathing—and forcibly blunt—indictment of modern American playgrounds, to wit: “Existing American playgrounds are a… Read more »
Wallhollas Around the World
Once in a while, I’ll stumble on an elaborate new play structure that wakes me up to the possibilities of playgrounds. Like a Picasso in a room full of representational… Read more »
The Evolution of Nature Playgrounds
It was against the backdrop of the volatile interwar years in Europe that celebrated Danish landscape architect, Carl Theodor Sørensen first conceived of the idea of skrammellegepladsers or, “junk playgrounds”…. Read more »