One of the most fulfilling and enjoyable design assignments is the planning of a new playground. These projects allow the “inner-kid” in all of us to come out and play. We have been fortunate to collaborate with our dear friend and colleague, Terry Horst, on the design of new playgrounds at both New York Mills Union Free School, and Sharon Springs CSD. The design process for these types of projects is to figure out what needs we should address in our designs and then come up with a plan. Often this involves distributing questionnaires amongst the students to determine what types of play equipment they would prefer.
Terry Horst is our good friend who’s landscaping knowledge and skills we often utilize to help make the students' dreams come to life. She is a font of knowledge when it comes to solving the technical challenges of the project. These challenges can be lack of proper: accessibility, drainage, and grading. Terry has been able to help our team solve these problems by suggesting solutions such as specific paving material at one of our playgrounds. This allowed excellent drainage for the playground, while also providing a comfortable and springy surface to soften any falls that occurred during playtime.
A more subtle aspect to the design of playgrounds is maintaining a balance between providing specific play elements, while allowing the young user’s creativity to make whatever they want of the space. A playground often includes typical play elements such as swings, slides, climbing elements, etc. However, the real joy is to combine these “stand alone” elements in such a way that the children can create unexpected, and imaginative “worlds” to play in. A play structure with a slide might become a fort or a castle to be defended or attacked, or a spaceship to take you to strange alien worlds. A climbing structure might be a mountain or a tall building to be scaled, or even a jungle or rainforest to explore.
Making sure that the playground includes enough specific elements to suggest play, without making it so specific that the creative instinct is curtailed is an important task for the designer. The types of play pieces, and their relationships to one another, as well as the surfaces between the play elements, and the entire surrounding landscape can enhance the fun.
At one of our playgrounds, the safety regulations required a “fall area” around the perimeter of the playground. Fall areas are put into playgrounds to ensure that if a child falls off a play structure they won’t injure themselves on any of the other equipment in their fall. Rather than just extend the paving, we changed the color, and created a measured “track” surrounding the rest of the play pieces. This “track” has been transformed by young imaginations into a “highway” to travel from city to city, as well as a river to cross or sail along. These interpretations, while sometimes unanticipated, are always delightful.
Teitsch-Kent-Fay’s primary design goal is always to combine the end-users' needs and wishes with our expertise to find solutions that are effective, enjoyable, and beautiful. This goal is particularly rewarded in playground design where we set up some ideas and the kids literally take them and run with them!
