Growing up, the science museum in my state had a transparent playground structure that I thought looked like soap bubbles....and which I was reminded of by the amazing sticky-tape spaces constructed by Vienna and Zagreb based architects Numen/For Use. I'm interested in how the creative use of transparency can heighten the instinctive feeling of vertigo and awareness of the possibility of falling...allowing a space that is quite safe to take on air of risk and the uncanny. Which of course is far more interesting to children.
[vintage bubble playground structures from a c. 1970s domus magazine, posted on flickr by leonardo.bonnani]
[photos of the Numen installations are all over the web, these are from source and source]
[search youtube for many more videos of numen's sticky-tape work, including construction of their projects]
As a Mom, I really like the visibility that transparency provides in play structures. I have twins and sometimes one will get lost behind an opaque structure while I am watching the other. On one occasion, this led to panic as one child left the play area to find a bathroom on their own. With a transparent structure, this never would have happened.
ReplyDeleteI love the numen stuff,
ReplyDeleteafter having played about with sticky tape structures
a while ago,
they can be deceptively strong.
Wow! Amazing tape structure!
ReplyDeleteI had a playground incident this weekend. I was watching my almost-three-year-old and another child of a similar age. Both decided to tackle tall ladders at once. I ran to spot my friend's kid, and watched as my son fell off. :( Thankfully, though he bonked his head, it was the mouthful of mulch that really bothered him.
I imagine I'll have a whole new perspective on playgrounds soon.
Hi, we're from the Landscape Architects Page on Facebook. and we would love to give your blog it's own album to show off all these wonderful pictures of top playgrounds,
ReplyDeleteWould you be willing to share your pictures and give us your permission to do so.
Please reply to our e-mail LA.COMMUNICATE@GMAIL.COM
The LA Team