Playgrounds

The Kaleidoscope Entrance welcomes guests to Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena, California, with mirrored, multicolored, interactive walls.

At Kidspace, outdoor areas designed by Nancy Goslee Power offer some very creative play spaces, such as this rope spider web. As Outdoor Education Specialist with the museum Gerard Gonzales says, “It invites children to imagine having eight legs and crawl across it like an arachnid.”

Children enjoying the Spider Web. In the foreground is a veggie garden with new corn sprouting up.

The Willow Hollow offers a shady respite, with secret spaces for children to discover. Grape vines are interspersed with the willow to provide tasty surprises as well.

Stone Hollow Amphitheater is the gathering place at Kidspace for concerts, educational shows and birthday parties. The stage is in the shape of a frog.

The benches of Stone Hollow Amphitheater encourage kids to discover and explore with whimsical hidden treasures.

The Kidspace Trike Track is a favorite spot, where kids learn the rules of the road while weaving through the Wisteria Courtyard.

This garden in San Francisco designed by Eric and Silvina Blasen of Blasen Landscape Architecture won a Residential Design Award this year from the American Society of Landscape Architects (see page 9 in the Sept/Oct issue). The steep slope was transformed into a graphic urban garden that is also a playground for the homeowners’ kids. On the right is a polished-concrete slide; on the left is a sandbox.

High on a hill near Los Angeles, often shrouded in mist, this space designed by landscape architect Joseph Marek includes a sandbox for the homeowners’ young daughter. The youngster also enjoys the other parts of the garden as well, such as the plants (seen here is Mexican feather grass), a “secret garden” on the other side of the house, and two water features.

At a garden in Venice Beach, California, homeowner Paul Bricault has included a number of elements for his children to enjoy, including a rooftop edibles garden and this wall hiding a “secret” play area. The children can enter through the miniature door, or climb up the tile wall and duck through the portal.

Another sandbox, at a garden in San Diego designed by Debora Carl. Hanging surfboards on the nearby fence is a practical way to store them while keeping them handy, but they also double as whimsical sculpture.

This small suburban landscape, designed by Joel Lichtenwalter, kept the homeowners’ three children in mind throughout, both for play and safety. Here a shaded checkerboard pattern of paving creates an interesting place to sit at the child-size table and chairs. To the right, just beyond the patio, is a small vegetable garden. At the back of the garden is a pool, shielded by a fence of upright iron posts.

Rather than a typical fence to protect the children from accidents around the pool, this fence has a sculptural quality and is unobtrusive in the garden. The posts are just tall enough and spaced just wide enough to block entry, while allowing a relatively unobstructed view toward and from the pool.

A modern take on playground equipment at the Lichtenwalter garden. In the foreground is a stylized surfboard to “ride.”

The homeowners’ children also enjoy swinging from a tree.

In addition to the in-ground vegetable garden, the family also grows fruits and veggies in containers, such as blueberries, eggplant and squash. By being familiar with the edible garden on a daily basis, the children have become knowledgeable about a wide variety of vegetables and they even keep a sharp lookout for beneficial insects like pollinators and ladybugs.

A sandbox at the entrance to the home. Through the open front door the checkerboard paving area can be seen just beyond a covered play area complete with drawing boards, desks and storage for toys.