Play Notes (to be an occasional weekend-ish feature of Playscapes)

• The Child and Nature Network is looking for a new executive director... if you're passionate about nature-based play, this might be a great fit for you!

• The lovely folks at Thoughtbarn have been commissioned to do a larger version of their PlayHive for ThinkMakeDo at the Austin Children's Museum!  The PlayHive plans Thoughtbarn provided for Aldo van Eyck's birthday last year have been downloaded via Playscapes over 20,000 times, and that's how the Children's Museum found Thoughtbarn.  This year's Aldo celebration is fast approaching (March 16)...if you'd like to submit a DIY plan as a firm, an organization, or an individual, do get in touch.


• Modern Mechanix unearths more strange play equipment of the past...I'm all for a balance of risk and play but these seem unnecessarily edgy and maybe not even that fun.


• Sarasota Springs, Utah, on the other hand, has stepped out and installed a 30-foot high play pyramid (take that, all you timid town councils).  Read their take on the liability issues involved: "It turns out the trick to avoiding liability lawsuits had as much to do with adequate signage as it did the available play equipment." Well hooray for signage, then! (via Daddytypes)
  
  
• While in Toronto I was pleased to make the acquaintance of Willy Chyr, whose fantastically playful balloon sculptures incorporate the generative randomness of natural processes, and use volunteers in their construction.


• ArtofSpace in Springfield Missouri continues the trend for playful knitting with inside climbing nets knit of plastic.  Be sure to watch the video of their construction.  


• Designer Vanessa van Dam made a typeface based on the playground designs of our-hero-Aldo van Eyck.  I love this!