Monday, March 21, 2011

New: Playscapes Forum

From the maker of the great Playscapes blog comes a forum for all sorts of related interaction. Have a look:
Playspaces Forum.

Snow Choreography

A neat project in Buffalo, where a faculty member was asked to develop choreography for a snow movement master plan (Front Park - An Olmsted Park). I really like how this is treating a landscape as a purely "winter designed" landscape. With pathways and mounds, this is an experience that you will only have in the winter. For how often landscapes are designed for the summer months (and hope for the best in the winter)... this is a refreshing paradigm shift. We also really like how this was modeled with what looks to be sugar.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Playspace Design Guide

A new revision to our "Playspace Ideas Guide":

Winnipeg Warming Huts - 2010 winners

These are the 2010 winners for this "Art  & Architecture Competition On Ice" where people are asked to design warming huts for this downtown river area in Winnipeg. Warming huts can make the difference between a fantastic day out skating (or otherwise enjoying the ice) and a miserable outing (nothing like having cold children). Add art and architecture, and you have something warm AND cerebral (or just pretty).

Marketing to feed the family...

This blog is definitely intended as a way for us to share interesting things that we find (and do) related to a fairly broad definition of play. We're landscape architects, so design work is how we feed our families... so, once in a while we'll be shameless and include material that focuses on us. We are a general landscape architectural and planning practice, but this is definitely one area we find to be rewarding (and fun!).

We'll be at the AEYC Early Childhoood Conference in Juneau tomorrow to listen and share... here are some boards that we put together for that: