where do the children play?
This photo essay is a companion piece to Where do the children play? an article published in the most recent issue of Ornamentum. I was invited to write a piece on playgrounds and design and drew on personal experience with six specific playspaces in Eastern Canada.
More than 50 years ago, Cat Stevens gave voice to this musing with his inimitable, poetic wistfulness. Today the question is more pressing. In the midst of a carbon fuelled climate crisis, road building, paving and repairs continue to outpace the development of urban public green space in many jurisdictions. It is critical that we safeguard and expand child-friendly urban spaces. Parks, neighbourhood green areas, undeveloped buffer lands, safe streets, increased mobility for children all need to be ramped up. Playgrounds are only one component of the overall mix. Done right they can be synonymous with child-led fun, adventure and discovery.
Strathcona's Folly, Ottawa (Stephen Brathwaite)
Salamander Playground, Montreal (Cardinal - Hardy)
Keeping cool
The Wave, Halifax (Donna Hiebert)
Halifax's most famous 'affordance' - "a use or purpose that a thing can have, that people notice as part of the way they see or experience it." (Cambridge Dictionary)
L'Étang-du-Nord, Magadalen Islands
Face to the wind
Havre Aubert, Magdalen Islands
More on the Magdalen Islands Play boats in the photo story All Hands on Deck.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. James Park Playground, Toronto (Earthscape and PMA Landscape Architects)
My daughter and I sneak in for an advance peek of the St. James Park Playground in downtown Toronto. It is a great tour though there is some sadness at the scene of the fallen cone - three, count them, three scoops succumbing in this ice cream tragedy. Fortunately the St. Lawrence Market is close by with purveyors of ice cream and other tasty treats.
Great photos of the completed St James Park Playground from Earthscape Play here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Big Backyard, Dufferin Grove Park, Toronto (CELOS)
Community volunteers brought this Big Backyard to life. For Torontonians in the know it's a destination play space. No wonder, as far as I can tell, it's the largest kids' sand pit in the galaxy. A standpipe, digging tools, containers, scrap lumber, toy dump trucks, graders and so on. Each day rivulets, gullies and hillocks are reshaped into an adventurous smorgasbord of exploration and play. More about the Big Backyard here and about the organization that made it happen, Centre for Local Research into Public Space (CELOS) - here.
Just Play
Where are your favourite 'just play' places? Share them with PlayGroundology on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos copyright Alex Smith unless otherwise noted.
Credits:
All photos copyright Alex Smith except where noted