LASN is a photographically oriented, professional journal featuring topics of concern and state-of-the-art projects designed or influenced by registered Landscape Architects.
Issue link: https://landscapearchitect.epubxp.com/i/85881
Right The playground's central core has a variety of bongos, musical instruments and musical/sensory panels. Cigar-shaped sensors hidden under the safety surfacing connect to speakers and low-voltage control system/circuit boards. When stepped on they activate a variety of sounds: animals, instruments, songs and recorded messages by kids. Each sensor can hold up to 10-programmed recordings. Roger Ryll (Delta USA, Gotha, Fla.) created and installed these "talking floors." Metal benches (Wabash Valley) and recycled plastic 'Park Scapes' benches (Bedford Technology, ForeSite Designs) provide adult seating. Chanticleer pear trees circle the interior space. The play structures (top left) are named after local Huntley businesses. Above The large sand play area (left) has a water dispenser so children can mold the sand. Buried in the sand is a dinosaur skeleton (okay, so it's concrete) just waiting to be discovered by little excavators with super scoopers. For wheelchair bound children there is a sand table. Just outside the sandbox, kids can board the train, which has a solar-powered driving panel that "starts the engine" and allows kids to turn on the wipers and beep the horn. A railroad crossing is at the intersection of the entry walk and the musical play core. The rectangular piece south of the train is a spring platform. greater physicality of teenagers with athletic fields. There was also the need to accommodate school age children who had outgrown the elementary climbing playground pieces, but were not ready for competitive contact sports. Of course, designing a playground with kids in wheelchairs in mind can discriminate against other special needs like autism, blindness and Down syndrome. Focusing on one disability or special need can result in a playground that provides little stimulation or developmental opportunities for the majority of children. It was also important to bring together all area kids to participate in noncontact, noncompetitive activities, while seeking resolve social divisions based on disability, gender, age and stature on the playground. That is why Bankshot was one element included on the Deicke playground. 52 Landscape Architect and Specifier News The Bankshot Concept What should a playground be? For Rabbi Reeve Brenner it's all about creative play and making friends on the playground, inclusion of all kids in nonaggressive activities with no body contact or intimidation, teaching civility and keeping kids fit and healthy by getting them out of their chairs and away from computer/TV screens for outdoor movement and fun. As a youth, Reeve Brenner spent a lot of time playing basketball in Brooklyn, and made the basketball team at Brooklyn's Yeshiva University High School, just a few blocks from Ebbets Field. He went on to play for Brooklyn College. He studied to become a rabbi at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institution of Religion in Manhattan. He was a U.S. Army chaplain in West Germany (1964-1966), the taught Jewish religious