Discovering the Extraordinary Playscapes Exhibit

During our trip, we had a totally unexpected but amazing moment. We stumbled upon The Boston Society for Architecture's Extraordinary Playscapes exhibit while walking around Boston. As someone obsessed with playscapes, I was thrilled by this discovery!

The Science of Play

The exhibit was extensive, filled with information mostly about commercial play spaces but also delving into the reasons for play and how play spaces influence child development. There were interactive exhibits, outdoor installations that I couldn’t visit, and plenty of beautiful drawings, plans, and models.

We spent a lot of time at the "Imagination Playground" exhibit by David Rockwell. This featured large blue foam blocks that you could manipulate. Much like small-scale building blocks, these large ones allowed you to create your own world and build your space. I loved how these blocks enabled people (kids and adults) to interact in various ways. Whether you’re a builder, a zoomer, or a quiet hider, you could use these blocks to play for hours.

I just love plan view drawings. They are one of the reasons I was attracted to the career. :D.

Nature play is near and dear to my heart. Not only did I create a forest pre school for my kid but I also worked on the play environment at his k-8 school. I also have a whole workshop I have taught at the Mothership Hackermoms in Berkeley.

Here is a link with exhibit info:

https://www.architects.org/exhibitions/extraordinary-playscapes

https://www.architects.org/about/bsa-space/visit

Tiny fairy garden planter

I can’t even describe how delighted I was when I realized that fairy gardens are A THING. This combines two of my favorite things: gardens and tiny things.

As a kid I spent so much time with my tiny glass animals. I had a dollhouse for them and I loved taking them outside to create houses for them on the moss patches in our yard.

fairy-IMG_4724.jpg

I’m not so much in to the fairy aspect. I prefer to think of trundling badgers in smoking jackets setting up a living room in my backyard. But I have found that most littles nowadays will respond to the idea that fairies might visit their garden and would enjoy having a place to rest and hang out. If I was a fairy i would totally want to hangout in the above picture. Look at that tiny little pot! squeee

I made this garden in a wide and low plastic container that I bought

Visit to Tah.Mah.Lah.

Tah.Mah.Lah. is a really neat example of eXtreme green building for rich people. I’m glad rich people are trying out new techniques for green building and while trickle down economics is a giant piece of bullshit I can at least hope that trickle down green building can be a thing.

The entire site was amazingly gorgeous and the homeowners were so generous to let us visit and even tour the inside of the home! This was a tour with my classmates. I tried hard to not get other people or other people’s butts in my photos. :)

I am still overwhelmed by this visit. The property is huge and every nook felt highly deigned and fantastically executed. The first thing I was drawn to where the amazing willow structures made by Patrick Dougherty. They are billed as a play structure but honeslty they were BIG and DARK and not at kid scale really. So, while there was evidence of kids playing there, I didn’t feel like it was exactly FOR KIDS. It felt more like land art for rich people. Which is great and I’m all for that. It was beautiful.

I was also so intrigued by the swimming pool. I thought it was a natural pool and i had never hear dof that being a thing but damn! what a cool thingthat would be to have/build! Anyway, this pool is not that but they did build adjacent ponds to it looks like one. I am in love with the wooden walkway seperating the pool from the pond area. I felt like I could be walking through The Great Swamp I remember from RI. Not exactly but I did feel there was great scope for the imagination in that spot.

The warm gold of the paving materials was very inviting. It managed to soften the huge stone blocks around the driveway area. I also just loved the way the paving materials transitioned. In some fo the abve pics you can see how the paving softly transitions to the meadow or other areas.

Lake Merritt Gardens - Sensory Garden

I love the Lake Merritt gardens. It is the perfect place to take a 2 year old! We often come to the sensory garden and J. also loves the Japanese Garden.