Elementary Studio Lesson
The Children Speak
Erin Jacobs
Public spaces that promote
play and discovery are popping up everywhere from
metropolitan cities to rural
and suburban settings. Playgrounds
such as David Rockwell’s Imagination Playground in New York City
and the Memorial Park Playground in
Wilsonville, Oregon, present a stark
contrast to the steel and plastic structures found at fast-food restaurants
and many public parks today.
These new structures
engage children in multi -
sensory experiences
that stimulate and
c hallenge their
developing
physic al, mental, and social
abilities. Merging aesthetic and developmental values has resulted in the
next generation of playgrounds that
challenge children to be explorers,
innovators, and collaborators.
Inspiring Designs
Successful playground design groups
such as Adventure Playgrounds
work with communities to identify
the wants and needs of their
c onsumers. Designers ask
parents and children to
c reate drawings and
complete surveys about the proposed
playground. These drawings lend
insight into what children want and
need in a recreational space. The
planning process of the following
lesson was inspired by the work of
community-based playground design
groups.
Dreaming Playgrounds
The first step in our study was to
identify the wants and needs of the
c ommunity stakeholders. Students
were asked to think about a place
where they enjoyed playing and draw
a picture of this space. The class
was divided into groups of two
o r three and asked to share and
d escribe their drawings. Each
group shared their responses
with the class and each group’s
responses were recorded on a
large chart.
Students discussed patterns
t hey saw in the responses and
identified categories that could be
used to group the
responses. This list
of wants and needs
would become the
basis of our playground design criteria. Additional wants
and needs could be
i dentified and added to
the list, but these characteristics would be used
to guide and evaluate our
final designs.
The second phase of the
project involved looking at
images of playgrounds such
as the New Park design for
Altrincham, Acconcci Studio’s
K lein Bottle Playground, and
multiple images of play structures from fast-food restaurants
and public parks. Students were
