The design intent for the project is to design an exterior space for the Deveroux Georgia Treatment Facility which can house a variety of activities including: A performance space, classroom space, and a social space uniquely integrated into a cohesive whole.
Location:
1291 Stanley Road Kennesaw,
Georgia 30152
United States
Outdoor Classroom Project Wins ACSA Award
Designing and building this outdoor classroom at Washington Elementary School in Fayetteville exposed students to the act of construction as a fundamental component of critical design practice. (Photo courtesy of Michael Hughes.)
The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture recently recognized Michael Hughes, an associate professor, with its 2009-10 Collaborative Practice Award. This honor for school-based community outreach programs recognizes Hughes’ Tectonic Landscapes project, an outdoor classroom for Washington Elementary School in Fayetteville (pictured above). With a stage, pavilion, story area and benches, the roughly 2,000-square-foot space is intended to expand learning opportunities and promote physical activity. A gateway opens onto Maple Street, inviting after-hours use by the neighborhood. Hughes and a group of 32 undergraduate students completed the design-build project over 11 months in 2007-08. The project was presented at the 98th annual ACSA meeting March 4-7 in New Orleans, where Hughes also accepted the award.
From: source
Big Net, Yuyu-no-mori Nursery School, Environment Design Institute, 2007
"This big net play feature is provided in the centre of the building and connects the second and third floors. Children enjoy sliding, climbing, jumping and lying down on the net with slope and that helps children’s development such as physicality and sociability. The net has become the school’s symbol."
Chop-Stick, VisionDivision, Indianapolis, USA, 2012
Playscapes correspondent applicant Sarah Carrier sent this project to me amongst the things she is interested in corresponding about, and I just couldn't wait to share it!
Stockholm-based VisionDivision was commissioned to build a concessions stand by the Indianapolis Museum of Art for the 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, a project that was realized in a beautiful and playful way--and almost entirely from a single tree. They called it Chop Stick.
Basing their design on "the universal notion that you need to sacrifice something in order to make something new. Every product is a compound of different pieces of nature..." they selected a 100-foot yellow poplar tree, the state tree of Indiana. "Our goal was to make the best out of this specific poplar tree, from taking it down and through the whole process of transforming it into a useful building that is now part of one of the finest art parks in the United States. As the project proceeded, we continued to be surprised by all of the marvelous features that where revealed in refining a tree into a building; both in the level of craftsmanship and knowledge of woodworkers and arborists, and also of the tree itself."
The first step was simply to suspend the tree as a great horizontal beam for the new structure. Bark was removed and fashioned into shingles, and also into lanterns for illuminating the structure at night. Pieces of wood were carefully extracted from the suspended tree and used for each of the design components: the stand itself, the structural supports, pillars and studs, the swings, the chairs and the tables. Pressed leaves and flowers were used to ornament the front glass of the kiosk, and yellow poplar syrup was even made from the bark, "thus meaning that you could actually eat a part of the building."
This project should remind us that making innovative play spaces requires a commitment far greater than a one-day installation of pre-fabricated components. Listen to what VisionDivision says about the process, which sounds itself like a piece of performance art:
"The delicate balance act of the risk of weakening the hovering tree with taking cuts from it versus having to have a certain amount of wood to stabilize and construct the kiosk and carrying the load from the tree itself was very challenging. Many days was spent with the structural engineer trying different types of cuts in a computer model to optimize the structure. To be able to fit all pieces that needed to be taken from the tree into the actual cuts we needed to make drawings for every single piece taken from the tree. We also needed to optimize the kiosk both in size and in its constructions since it would take a lot of weight from the hovering trunk. The kiosk got a truss frame construction with two larger pieces of wood that are right under the tree. Using the schematics from our engineers force diagram program, we concluded that the wall closer to the end of the tree was taking more load, thus we sized up the two larger pieces of wood in that specific wall. All these alterations really just made the project more beautiful since the design became more refined in terms of more balanced proportions."
Some might say that such attention is a waste of time and money, but if this was going up in my community I'd stop by every day to see the hovering tree and the careful extraction of its wood. Imagine the community commitment to the space that could be developed through the performativity of the build. Similarly, realizing the Woods of Net by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam (the most popular ever post here at Playscapesand now receiving well-deserved and overdue worldwide acclaim) required a devotion to the invisible structural engineering that make her pieces possible...architectural (Tezuka Architects) and engineering (TIS and Partners) collaborators are an integral part of that design's success, which was three years in the making.
Dymaxion Sleeps, or a Natural Playground on two levels
If you ever thought you didn't have space for both a garden AND a climbing net think again...
Most natural playscapes seek to combine elements of the garden with elements of the traditional playground, but I don't think I've seen one that did so on two levels quite like the 'Dymaxion Sleep' installations by Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell for the International Garden Festival atJardins de Métis/Reford Gardens. Inspired by both the geometries and the wacky sleep regimen of Buckminster Fuller, they installed triangular circus nets in frames over plantings of aromatic, relaxing plants like lemon geraniums, lavenders, peppermints and catmints.
The garden was so popular that it remained for the 2010 and 2011 festivals, and for 2012 they added a portion of the structure that rolls up to provide a shaded nook.
I really love this playscape--such a simple combination of elements, and yet it's far more visually appealing (and frankly looks way more fun) than many 'traditional' playgrounds. It accommodates both group or individual play, across a range of ages, and the more vertical triangles add a nice element of risk to be approached as you wish (see the boy in the final photo) or not! It would be great adapted with say, ticklish grasses interspersed with crawling paths underneath the nets.
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| image via sparklingadventures |
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| image via sparklingadventures |
More Playful Knitting: Giant Knitting Nancy, Superblue Design, London, 2010
http://sesoutdoorclassroom.blogspot.sg/
http://www.imahnahome.com/home-full-color/residential-full-color-and-fun-for-our-baby.html
http://www.imahnahome.com/design-schools/interior-design-concepts-preschool-with-full-color-by-pizzaro-rueda.html
http://www.imahnahome.com/design-schools/2011-school-of-public-minimalist-modern-building-design-with-green-wall-sturdy.html
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