The Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission works on park owned property to provide recreation facilities for Prince George County. This playground, located at Heurich Park in Hyattsville, Maryland was part of the Capital Improvement Project list.
Photos Courtesy of Maryland National Capital Park & Planning Commission

Over 60 play elements are included in this revamped, 5,000 sq. ft. playground, with play structures by Little Tikes Commercial. With all the intricate detailing, the poured-in-place safety surfacing took about a week to complete.

Landscape architect Brenda Iraola, ASLA, made the most of her budget by purchasing play equipment that was on sale – the equipment, colored in red, blue and yellow reminded Brenda of comic heroes from her childhood, which then became the theme of the playground.

The swing set area is designed with Captain America in mind. A large protective shield under the swing set is seen when kids "fly" high over the American colors of red, white, and blue.

The play value includes comic hero faceplates for the steps, a Superman "planet system" panel, a Wonder Woman "fast silver slide," Batman climbing structures, rock wall, ring chin-up bars, and a plastic curved hidden
bat cave entry.

Designing can be fun and creative for a landscape architect. Within the past two years, the landscape architects at the Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission in Prince George's County have been creating very unique playgrounds for kids to enjoy! Recently, I had an opportunity to work with my staff, Chris Colvin, to design several of these playgrounds. One day, a local Maryland sales representative with Commercial Recreation Products for Little Tikes/Play Power told me he had some play equipment that was for sale. He wanted me to know that the equipment "was already designed and had only colors of red, blue, and yellow"?(R)?and it was all STEEL equipment." I tried to think of what I could do to this basic steel equipment to make it more interesting. My thoughts drifted to the new comic hero summer movie that was coming out soon"?(R)? titled "Man of Steel." Wow! What a perfect idea"?(R)?I could turn this basic metal equipment into a superhero theme like the movie, "Man of Steel."

After all, Superman and many other comic heroes used standard colors of red, blue, and yellow"?(R)?the exact colors of the playground equipment! With a few tweaks here and there the equipment was transformed into an action comic hero playground. The play value included comic hero faceplates for the steps, a Superman "planet system" panel, a Wonder Woman "fast silver slide," Batman climbing structures, rock wall, ring chin up bars, and a plastic curved hidden bat cave entry. In addition, for the Flash we provided an overhead fast gyro spinner with lightening bolts, and of course for Captain America we designed a large protective shield near the swing sets to allow kids to "fly" high while swinging over the American colors of red, white, and blue.

Colorful additions were made by enhancing the rubber poured-in-place safety surfacing throughout the play area with bright comic graphic colors of red, yellow, blue, and white (and of course black for "Batman"). Chris Colvin helped draw and design collaboratively with me to create an action comic hero play surfacing. Some of the features of the play surfacing include, an entry hopscotch game with the words "COMICS" graphically added in place of the standard 1,2,3 numbering system. The comic hopscotch game serves as a large entry feature and a fun game to play for the kids. In addition, we added a lot of action hero words that were exciting to read, like SPLAT! PLOP! WOW! ZAP!
AND ZOOM!

Standard age play signage can also be graphically enhanced, with the new digital image capabilities. So, I decided to use Comic Hero action wording on the standard age appropriate play rule signage too"?(R)?we added the words seen in the playground surfacing to the signs (SPLAT, WOW, ZAP, etc.) and provided a comic action background of lightening bolts for the Flash, a water mark for the SPLAT word, a large star for the WOW of Wonder Woman near the 2-5 play structure, a long pale yellow direction funnel pointing toward the "Batman" sign ,which is visible once you climb high up on the top deck of the 5-12 play structure.

If you get a chance to visit Prince George's County, Maryland please come visit the Comic Heroes playground located a Heurich Park"?(R)?we would love to share our park with you! Bring your kids and dress them as their favorite action comic hero"?(R)?and have fun playing outdoors!