adventure playgrounds
Risky Play and the Study That Fueled a Movement
Meghan Talarowski “I hate taking my kids to the playground.” That’s not something you expect to hear from a person who researches and designs playgrounds for a living. Yet there was Meghan Talarowski on a TEDx stage, flashing a picture of one of those cheerfully colored, boxed-in, plasticized kiddie slides as she…
The Children’s School of Oak Park: Nature-Play on a Paved Courtyard and a Tiny Budget
The Children’s School of Oak Park, a progressive K-8 school outside Chicago, turned their parking lot into a nature play space on a nonprofit budget—a little over $1,000 all told. How did they do it? A grant from the Deep Roots Project was part of it. The volunteer-led Chicago community…
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 area tour guides, but they are nonetheless among the country’s best. From sculptural designs worthy of the boisterous and daring…
Designer Profile: Joe Frost, The Contemporary Father of Play Advocacy
As a child on a small farm in southwestern Arkansas, Joe Frost played with his friends in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains. He played war and chase, built dams in the stream behind his grade school, and piled on his classmates in a game called “Dog Pile.” He devoured…
Designer Profile: Michelle Mathis, RLA, Learning Landscapes Design
Eight years ago, on a five-day cycling tour of Berlin, Michelle Mathis stumbled upon her first bonafide adventure playground. What she saw caught her off guard: along several hundred linear feet of boardwalk, children unaccompanied by parents were using hammers, hand saws, and pieces of scrap wood to build forts,…
Designer Profile: Joseph Lee, Father of the Playground Movement
“Do not be forever meddling, interfering, asking questions, showing them a better way. Give the constructive power of your children scope and elbow room – the temple that it builds is invisible to any eyes but theirs. If you blur and jostle their vision, it is lost.” —Joseph Lee, social…
Designer Spotlight: Horst Henke – The Man Who Brought Wood To North American Playgrounds
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know the name Rick Henke. Raised in Kiel Germany, Henke immigrated to the US in the 1970s and founded the Goric Marketing Group USA in 1994. With his background in engineering and his involvement in developing playground safety standards in Canada,…
