The 3,500 square foot playground features nine play features by Lexington Design + Fabrication, ranging from slides and a rope climber to play mounds one to four feet in height.
Photo: Jim Simmons

 

The 20-foot tall, three-tiered steel tree house structure with Brazilian ipe hardwood panels is the center of the playground action. The mature sycamores will eventually create a continuous shade canopy. The trees planted in the play zone have a bonded rubber fiber around them to simultaneously provide fall protection and facilitate airflow and water penetration to the root ball.
Photo: Jim Simmons

For those youngsters intimidated by the 12-foot-tall tube slide, there's a nice wide and gently sloping roller slide.
Photo: Jim Simmons

The majority of the safety surfacing (from SpectraTurf) is poured-in-place, with an underlying cushion layer and an outerwear course. The safety surfacing offers a "forest floor' of larger-than-life leaf shapes in a variety of nature-inspired colors. The tunnel is a reclaimed storm drainpipe.
Photo: Jim Simmons

Let there be music. A child explores the sounds of one of the three xylophones (from Freenotes Harmony Park). Dad's kneeling here, but he has the option to sit on steel framed benches (with and without backs) with ipe slates and in the color motif of the tree house.
Photo: Jim Simmons

Leaf-shaped signage designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios (RCHS) decorates the three-and-a-half-foot tall fence with the words "Let's Play" in 25 languages"?uthe number of languages of L.A. County voter registration materials. RCHS took the idea of translating "Let's Play" in 25 languages from the entry totems designed by Sussman/Prejza & Co. Note: L.A. County reports 224 distinct languages spoken in L.A. The U.S. Census Bureau identifies 382 individual languages, but collects data on only the 39 most commonly spoken ones. The top 10 in L.A: English, Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Armenian, Vietnamese, Farsi, Japanese and Russian.
Photo: Jim Simmons

Los Angeles-based landscape architecture firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios had the design challenge of expressing the multicultural diversity of the City of Angels in its design for Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.

The 12-acre park resides between the Music Center and City Hall. Faced with a site divided by two city streets and a challenging 90-foot grade change, the landscape architects softened Bunker Hill's incline with pedestrian-friendly and ADA-accessible ramps and broad steps. "J-Ramps" extended existing below-grade ramps to the north and south to create a series of central terraces (dining, event seating, general gathering places) with drought-tolerant plants and a grand event lawn, all leading down into the park from Grand Avenue to the restored Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain.

The park opened to acclaim in 2012. In November 2014, the park got a new playground. Located at the east end of the park between Broadway and Spring Street, the playground is a fanciful forest for youngsters to experience an urban style tree house, slides, a rock climber and more.

Rios Clementi Hale Studios designed the playground, a collaborative effort of firm memebers Tony Paradowski, senior associate, John Stuart Fishback, landscape architect and associate and designer Chris Torres.

At the heart of the 3,500 square foot playground is a tree house inspired steel frame structure painted lime green, with Brazilian ipe hardwood slates. The custom play structure by Lexington Design + Fabrication has an impressive 12-foot tall tube slide jutting from the side of the tree house; for the smaller kids, there's a four-foot high roller ramp at the other end.

"We researched city playgrounds from all around the world, especially in Europe," explained lead designer Tony Paradowski of Rios Clementi Hale Studios. "The tower design gives children a sense of what it's like to climb a tree in an urban forest."

The playground's safety surfacing offers a "forest floor' of larger-than-life leaf shapes in a variety of nature-inspired colors.

"The leaves are placed in a random pattern to appear as if they've been blown off the trees," says Paradowski. "We wanted kids to feel like they're playing in a mound of fallen leaves." As the mature sycamore trees placed in the playground grow, their boughs will eventually connect together to create a continuous shade canopy.

Seven berms ranging from one to four feet tall have added features, such as rock-climbing handles, a rope climber and a tunnel constructed of a reclaimed storm drainpipe.

Two types of safety surfacing were used in the design of the playground: poured-in-place and bonded rubber fiber, or recycled rubber mulch. A two-part system created an underlying cushion layer sized to accommodate various fall height requirements throughout the site, and an outerwear course. Where trees were planted within the play zone, bonded rubber fiber was installed to simultaneously provide fall protection and maintain tree health by using a material that promotes airflow and water penetration to the root ball. Both products were made and installed by Spectraturf.

For parents and care givers, there are several curved steel-framed benches painted the same lime-green as the play house, along with Brazilian ipe slates for good looks and sitting comfort.

Another feature of the playground is the colorful, leaf-shaped signage by Rios Clementi Hale Studios. Decorative signs on the three-and-a-half foot tall fence that surrounds the playground have the words "Let's Play" in 25 different languages, which come from the Los Angeles County voter registration materials.

Play equipment by Lexington Design + Fabrication and Landscape Structures includes:
• A custom 20-foot-high tree house
• Four-foot-tall roller slide
• A 12-foot-tall tube slide
• Three tiers of platforms inside the climber
• Rope climber
• A crawl tunnel
• Rock-climbing handles
• Play mounds ranging in height from one to four feet in height

Note: The three xylophones are from Freenotes Harmony Park, Durango, Colo.

One challenge of the project was creating a design that was exclusive to Grand Park, but stayed within the budget. The designers collaborated with a local fabricator to create a custom tree house climber that would also bring a sense of nature into the urban site.

The infrastructural expenses to retrofit the site for a playground ended up being significant, despite efforts to minimize impact to existing conditions. These constraints led to a smaller footprint than initially expected and led the design team to maximize play opportunities within the 3,500-square-foot linear space. The playground, like all of Grand Park, is ADA accessible.