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Playground Design of Yesteryear and Its Much Prettier Modern Counterparts

By erika - January 31, 2014

in Toy

Playgrounds are meant for fun, not broken bones and tetanus shots. Looking through the archives, images of, say, poorly fused metal monkey bars might seem more suited to heavy industry than family-friendly recreation stations. Recently, I came across a park that makes me wish it were socially acceptable to barrel down communal slides past the age of 11. A design featuring massive owls and wooden bugs at the Kristine Slott Park in Stockholm from Danish design firm Monstrum (pictured below) set me off on a search for the coolest playground equipment. From giant literature-themed jungle gyms to climbable monsters made of reclaimed material, here are four playgrounds you've got to see whether or not you have kids in tow.

Kristine Slott Park in Stockholm

Gulliver Park in Valencia, Spain

This park (a collaboration between architect Rafael Rivera, artist Manolo Martin and the designer Sento) is inspired by—you guessed it—Jonathan Swift's fantasy classic Gulliver's Travels and features a giant Gulliver-gone-jungle-gym. The bird's-eye view is also something to note, thanks to Google Earth.

Nishi Rokugo Park in Tokyo

Nishi Rokugo Park—which literally translates to "Tire Park" and features over 3,000 of them—is made up of sculptures (including a tire Godzilla), tunnels, tire swings and even a tubing area where kids can hit the concrete slopes. It can't be the most hygienic park, but there are worse things than road-worn rubber.

Roly Poly Park in Gentofte Denmark

Stepping inside Roly Poly Park (another masterpiece from Monstrum) is supposed to make you feel tiny—it's designed to look like a forest floor. Don't let the namesake turn you away. Aside from looking like an illustration straight from a children's book, the park features 14 different facts plastered on various structures about the Roly Poly bug. Cheers to playful education.

Following Gulliver's lead, Tom Otterness' Silver Towers Playground in New York City is a bronze, slightly steampunk man just asking to be climbed on. With legs that double as slides and a hollow head perfect for hiding from parents, it's a splendid (and well-designed) inner city escape.

Have any others to add to the list? Share in the comments.

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Loretta

11 years ago

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I remember as a kid going to the Dennis The Menace park in Monterey, California and being completely dazzled by all the things you could climb on, including an old train. http://www.yelp.com/biz/dennis-the-menace-park-monterey-2
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dan

11 years ago

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One of the most outstanding playgrounds on the planet can be visited at the City Museum in St. Louis.

Search for it in a map program and view it from above or check the website.

It will redefine your definition of outrageously fantastic.

As a father of two I highly recommend taking hand sanitizer, a flashlight and walkie talkies.

Oh...you'll be there all day.

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Tom Mc

11 years ago

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I find the newer playgrounds may look a lot more visually pleasing but are boring and offer few challenges for an active child. Who wants to ride a see-saw that has no fulcrum and instead is just a spring at the middle that gives you maybe a foot of vertical travel on each side? Or a slide that's 6' tall that's not slippery and full of static because it's roto-molded out of HDPE and not made of metal or something more lubricious? That sucks. Monkey bars that have maybe 5 bars covered with rubber that doesn't allow your hands to glide over them when swinging back and forth. Some stupid tic-tac-toe thing or a bunch of steering wheels fastened to posts with bolts and sleeve bearings. Give me a break.

I loved those old playgrounds in Chicago that went away in the late 80's. Pea gravel, welded and ground bars that were rusty but smooth from decades of hands polishing them. I remember the smell my hands had after being on the monkey bars, and what it felt like to fall off (it hurt, but we got back up and went back at it).

Today's kids are just like these softy new playgrounds - thanks to their overprotective parents.
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Luke

11 years ago

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First they shortened the slides and lowered the ladders and monkey bars. Then they put restrictions on how wide a gap between railings can be, so that children can neither fall through nor get their hands caught. Then they banned wood and mandated a rubberized coating on everything.

And now? Now they took away the ladders and monkey bars entirely, replaced them all with stairs and walkways.

See-saws are gone. Carousels are gone. Swings are becoming rare, especially the kind with chains. Tires, if they're at all allowed, have to be filled with foam and plugged up.

How long before playgrounds are nothing but a collection of soft foam sculptures, too floppy to climb or play on?

This is the fault of designers. Yeah, we as a group solved a bunch of problems really damn well. Only, they were the wrong problems. We caved in to the demands of yuppie helicopter parents, and have built a society designed to smother children, make them obese, and stamp out their imaginations.

I'd rather have a plain set of steel tubes as a playground, because that's a blank canvas for children to build upon. Adult aesthetic sensibilities are secondary to that. I'd rather risk cuts, concussions, and broken bones, because in the long run, eliminating that risk will do much more harm.

There has to be a limit on kid-friendliness. We need to stop shielding out kids from all injury, we need to stop Disneyfying all our grimmer fairy tales, we need to let fist fights happen, we need to stop disinfecting everything or applying antimicrobial coatings everywhere, and we need to let kids out into the world unsupervised. Nearly ever danger to kids people are seeking to address is overblown, and the cure is worse than the disease.
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Andrew

11 years ago

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Agreed. I don't knock the newer playgrounds, they're great. However, one of the primary purposes of play is to educate us on aspects of the physical world, how our bodies interact with them, and what their limitations are.Bumps & scrapes teach us how to avoid bumps & scrapes.

Besides, as the parents out there will know, kids will find a way to injure themselves on anything!
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jt

11 years ago

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The contemporary playground looks more imaginative for sure and is probably more sensitive to bullying and peanut allergies. But, the older playground I think produced more of a challenge and tougher kids. It's almost a right of passage to leave behind the skin on the backs of your legs on a radiated metal slide and to get into a couple of fist fights with some neighborhood toughs over who's turn it is on the 40' monkey bars.
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