Kids Learn To Get Creative And Get Along In New Playground

Swings, slides and seesaws are so 20th century

, an antiquated approach to child leisure now routinely laughed out of the sandbox of learning theory. These days, child learning experts recommend playgrounds that equip children with "loose parts" and other tools to create a "child directed" play space.

It sounds like an expensive day care or a water park--but its latest New York City public park, the Imagination Playground, which opens today at South Street Seaport (pictured above). Both the city and the designers, The Rockwell Group, hope it'll become a new paradigm in how kids play.

The multi-level, sculpted 18,000 square foot park consists of hundreds of moveable, flexible pieces of foam and fabric, and specific areas for water and sand and a place to where kids can mix the two and come up with their own fun. New York architect David Rockwell got the idea for a site-specific, interactive park after becoming a father a few years ago.

The park's entrance is guarded by an iron sea serpent. Instead of monkey bars and jungle gyms, there are fountains with canals of cascading water that can be dammed in infinite ways, or transformed into a network of rivers. There is an engaging set of lifts and pulleys. Play is proctored and interaction fostered by a staff of city workers trained as "play associates."

The playground, a free park open to the public with daytime hours, was designed at no charge to the city by David Rockwell, an architect whose firm, the Rockwell Group, is known for creating snazzy interiors for restaurants like Nobu and Emeril's and other projects, including the viewing platform at ground zero. Mr. Rockwell, who lives in Lower Manhattan, has two children, ages 8 and 10, and he found that the playgrounds around his home did not sufficiently challenge their imagination.

"At these conventional playgrounds, you have a lot of linear thinking - kids standing on line for swings and slides," he said at the playground Monday as it got its final city inspection. "I kept thinking we should have a playground that invites kids to make their own play space."

Susan Solomon, who consulted on the project, believes that this kind of play experience helps prepare kids for the uncontrolled environments they may face in the future, "Here, nothing is fixed, nothing is predetermined, and they can see consequences, learn to make decisions," Solomon said. "They learn that not everything is already laid out for you in a way in which it's always going to be perfect: It's possible to fail.

by: Tom Doerr

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