Month: November 2017
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 the work of five city park departments, which have excelled in making their park systems accessible places for recreation, quiet…
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 and rest. And some very good playgrounds could be better if they provided more shade to sustain longer stretches of…
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,” may seem irreverent on its face, but beneath the deadpan lies a deeper truth. The desire to reach the top…
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 Disorder, discussed how children with sensory disorders benefit from strategically designed playgrounds and gardens. Their presentation drew my thoughts to…
