Designed for Play
For any parent or caregiver you know how important the playground is. A space for freedom. To run around. Swing. Play. Imagine. As new parents, we’ve been exploring play with a sense of creativity with our toddler. It’s fun to watch him turn a sock into a kite or a giant stick into an extension of his arm, but what does it look like to imagine in an open public space. We were lucky enough to take an adventure to Atlanta’s Piedmont Park and spend some time with designer and sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s Playscapes. A space not just for kids, but adults too.
This masterpiece of play is Noguchi’s only playground in the US. Built in 1976, Playscapes was originally sponsored by Atlanta’s High Museum of Art and the National Endowment for the Arts. It was built with the idea of being a space for endless exploration.
“I think of playgrounds as a primer of shapes and functions; simple, mysterious, and evocative; thus educational.”
Not only is Playscapes an incredibly exciting space, it’s a work of public art. The use of color and shapes with nature as its backdrop opens the door for an explosion of exploration. If only all playgrounds were built with Noguchi’s influence in mind.
“When an artist stops being a child, he stops being an artist.”
