Hellobee

It’s a tough one because creating an industry around something draws attention to the ways it lacks. And kids come to expect a certain level of safety from playgrounds that they don’t expect from nature. America is such a strange place to create things because it seems like here, a kid falls and breaks their arm (like they could out of a tree) and their parents immediately look for someone to sue.

Playgrounds end up being really expensive partly in order to factor that cost in. That’s my take anyway, hearing bits and pieces here and there from the design world.

I absolutely love the idea of natural playgrounds as well as adventure playgrounds – basically anything that gets kids creating or playing on their own. For example – rather than a physical airplane in a park that can only ever be an airplane, I love the idea of a fallen log with two perpendicular branches outstretched so that sometimes it is an airplane… but sometimes it’s a dragon. Kids can go so far with imagination if we let them.

It also seems that imagination begets more imagination. The next door neighbor has a yard full of kids’ toys! She definitely does play out there but I never see her playing with the plastic houses littered around the yard. I’m sure she did at first. But single-use items seem to lose kids’ interest so quickly in ways that things that can be reinvented over and over don’t.

I am also really interested in seeing my kids find their edges, within a safe space. I don’t want them to assume that the structure itself will ensure that the edges aren’t met. I want them to go to the edge, look over, and decide they’ve had enough. I want to be there to make sure they don’t hurt themselves but a little scrape – great. Edge found. In the aforementioned article too,