Friends – With the end of the year just around the corner and we look back on 2021 it’s tempting to view it through a dark lens. No one can be blamed for seeing 2021 as another year of hardship, when Covid continued to reign over our lives, constricting us in work and play. Yet… Read more »
When Minnesota’s Three Rivers Park District sketched out the plan for updating an aging playground, there was no question it would include a zip line. 600 kids and their parents made that clear when they were asked for suggestions. Describing the old zip line as a “beloved element of the original play area,” the district… Read more »
Even before their official dedication last month, the Griff slides of Erie, Pennsylvania had taken on almost mythic proportions. “This is just huge for the Erie community,” said landscape architect Alex Luddy. “That’s shown by all the community involvement we had.” From a gleam in the eye of Erie developer Rick Griffith, to the completed… Read more »
“Everybody has the right to play.” It says that in large letters right on the wall at the entrance to Trane All-Abilities Park. It’s a declaration that the people of La Crosse, Wisconsin made real this summer when the 2-acre park, 10 years in the making, was dedicated. Across seven play zones, the park is… Read more »
Arising on the banks of Long Island’s Hempstead Bay, upon what once was an industrial wasteland, is a new neighborhood. Strung along an inlet and linked by a waterfront promenade, the shops, restaurants and play areas of Garvies Point have already become a popular destination for the residents of Glen Cove, NY. And among the… Read more »
Playground fundraising is never easy. In the best of times, it can mean an endless round of bake sales, car washes, 5ks and benefit dinners. In the midst of our COVID pandemic, when these types of gatherings are risky or prohibited, fundraising may seem almost impossible. The good news is that not only is it… Read more »
Long before the coronavirus shut down parks and playgrounds, kids were hijacking streets and sidewalks and appropriating vacant lots to create their own play areas. They jumped rope, chalked hopscotch on sidewalks and turned any space large enough to build a cardboard fort into an impromptu battlefield. The nation even sung a paean to playing… Read more »
Note: This is the third in a series of articles about play and playgrounds for seniors. Links to the previous posts are at the end of this article. ∼∼∼∼∼ Happily, we in the elder demographic are not likely to be admonished for eating sand or walking backwards up the actual slide. Our maturity engenders a… Read more »
Note: This is the second of three articles about play and playgrounds for seniors. Links to the series are at the end of this article ∼∼∼∼∼ Our smile-less masked world is a sort of backdrop begging to be painted over with happy scenes. With trepidation we’ve burst forth from our collective Covid-chrysalis to not go… Read more »
Note: This is the first of three articles about play and playgrounds for seniors. Links to the series are at the end of this article. ∼∼∼∼∼ Our static moment of quarantine has been surprisingly elastic. Just as we acclimate and refine the art of stay-at-home lifestyle, society flirts with re-opening. Moving from isolation toward re-emergence… Read more »
There is a new thinking in water play design that has as much in common with the ubiquitous splash park as a neighborhood playground has with an adventure destination. We noted this trend several months ago in discussing the first season of the water play area at Knudsen Park in Holladay, Utah. The community there… Read more »
It was after the birth of her second daughter, developmentally disabled Ava, that Olenka Villarreal discovered how isolating a playground could be. The 34 playgrounds in Palo Alto, California where she lived were all ADA-complaint, but to Villarreal accessibility was not the same as usability. Her quest for a place where Ava and children of… Read more »
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