An adventure playground will open in the heart of New York City this May. Play:ground, a local nonprofit, will open a 5,000 square foot play space on Governors Island where kids can imagine a world of their own making and experience self directed play. Modeled after a junkyard, the adventure playground lets children shape their environment using an assortment of materials, tools, water, dirt, and things that others might describe as trash.
play:ground in the park, Fort Greene Park. Credit: play:ground
At the Governors Island adventure playground there will be none of the usual structures that you might find in a traditional playground – no shiny metal slides or swings, but the kids might build their own forts from wood pallets and hay bales, they might manage a see saw out of planks of woods or a trampoline out of old tires that lands them in a pile of mud. All this happens under the watchful eyes of trained playworkers — staff who are on hand to provide assistance when requested, but otherwise stand back and let the children take the lead.
Today in New York, young people experience a tightly managed urban landscape, with rare access to spaces belonging entirely to them. Where are kids free to self-organize, or independently create from their imaginations? play:ground encourages a sense of freedom and permissiveness not found in most of the city.
playfree nyc
“You can’t go to your normal neighborhood playground and start tying stuff onto the playground structure, or start drawing on things with markers. You definitely can’t start nailing things to the playground structure,” observes Reilly Wilson, co-founder of play:ground and PhD candidate/NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Environmental Psychology at The Graduate Center of the CUNY.
In addition to free public hours, play:ground will offer summer camps and school visits. Beyond the space on Governor’s Island, play:ground will continue providing local outreach through its ongoing initiative — play:ground in the park. Based on the Pop-Up Adventure Play model, play:ground in the park brings loose parts (e.g. boxes, fabric, found objects, art materials) to parks around the city, installing temporary play spaces for all.
play:ground in the park, Governors Island. Credit: play:ground
play:ground launched its $25,000 kickstarter campaign, with a deadline of March 30th, to help cover the starting costs including materials, fencing, and playworker staffing for Spring/Summer 2016.
“I feel free at adventure playgrounds. You’re the one who builds the playground.” Oliver, 7.