Intended to tell the story that shaped the geography of the U.S. Inland Northwest, the Ice Age Floods Playground project is one of five major park elements identified by the city of Spokane, Washington's Riverfront Park Master Plan, which was funded by a $64 million bond in 2014 to redevelop the park's areas.
Bernardo Wills Architects, a multi-disciplinary firm that provides landscape architecture, traditional architecture, land-use planning and interior design was put in charge of the public engagement phase, as well as supplying construction drawings, preparing permits, and bidding services for the Ice Age Floods Playground.
This distinctive playground was designed as an outdoor learning and play experience that tells the story of how the Ice Age Floods, specifically the Great Missoula Flood (a cataclysmic event during the last ice age) shaped the region.
Because of the dynamic nature of the floods and the rich imagery of its components, its story created a great opportunity to be transformed into an exciting play environment that offers rich, multi-dimensional learning opportunities.
The aims of the Ice Age Floods Playground were to provide a completely interactive and fun way for children, families, and interested people to learn about the region's unique geologic history. In order to accomplish this, an adaptive, safe, dynamic, high-quality, and nature-based play/learn environment for children of all abilities and their families was created.
The playground's designers hope their handiwork "will be incredibly unique in its capacity to provide both passive and active recreation with age-appropriate play areas for children to interact with water and landscape features depicting the region's geologic story."
Construction of the .35-acre playground (40,000 square feet) within a 6.5-acre park area began in February of 2020. The final results include a themed play area, a "Glacial Dam" splash pad, open play, a specialty basketball court (called Hooptown USA), a "wheels" park, landscaping, lighting, a new maintenance and operations facility, four family restrooms, two picnic shelters for public use, a parking area with 156 new parking stalls, a drop-off zone and innovative stormwater solutions, and an improved intersection and park entrance off Washington & North River Drive.
The playground components feature a three-story slide tower, a log jam climber and an alluvial deposit fossil dig.
Additional components of the project include: a sand play area, a preserved natural basalt bluff, climbing walls, a waterfall, interpretive signage, and what is known as the Roskelley Memorial Climbing Boulder, named for Jess Roskelley, a famed alpine climber and lifelong resident of Spokane who died in 2019 as the result of an avalanche.
Design Context
The playground is located on the north bank of the Spokane River in Riverfront Park, just south of Spokane's new Podium Sportsplex building and the Spokane Arena.
Two central considerations of the design were to create a playground that benefitted visitors of all ages and posed developmentally appropriate challenges. The project focused on the benefits of outdoor play, expanding on the perception of a typical playground.
Quality of the Design and Execution
The story of the playground was intended to tell was how several lake outburst floods from Glacial Lake Missoula, occurring between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago, gave geological shape to the Inland Northwest. The flooding from these outbursts stretched from western Montana to the Pacific Ocean.

 
Markers of these torrential outbursts are visible throughout Washington and are playfully expressed in the playground. The park layout was designed to mimic the general geographic orientation of the actual flood events and depict the resulting geologic features that were formed and uncovered during the flooding.
The glacial lake, the genesis of the flood, is represented in the northeast corner of the park by the bowl of the skatepark. On the outside of the west wall of the skatepark, a waterfall feature is built into hand carved and crafted, glass reinforced concrete climbing walls.
As the water feature cycles on and off, misters built into crevices precede the start of each cycle, depicting the designer's imaginative interpretation of the failing of the glacial ice dam just before the event of an outburst flood.
Expert Help
The design team included consultants from Eastern Washington University, Gonzaga University, and the Ice Age Flood Institute (IAFI) who assisted with various elements of the park that emphasized the project theme and story. IAFI was instrumental in providing the narrative signage and graphics placed throughout the playground.
The team's professional geologist collaborated with the landscape architects to ensure the park represented significant, regional geologic landforms and was designed and finished with a geologically appropriate character.
For instance, intermittent, enormous rocks that dot characteristic landscapes in the region formed by glacial activity are represented by large, smooth boulders of several metasedimentary types (gneiss, granite, and basalt).
Representations of hexagonal columnar basalt formations, readily found throughout the Inland Northwest, are etched into the park's concrete climbing walls and are also represented in abstract by the 25-foot, six-sided slide and observation tower.
Playful, grassy mounds at the playground's west end resemble the symmetrical mounded deposits, called Mima mounds, found west of Spokane and are thought to be the result of flooding and alluvial deposits from these glacial floods.
The team's stormwater engineer assisted in developing educational ideas for the flood themed playground as it pertained to the characteristics of water. The swirling lines of the play surface represent currents around spinning play equipment. At the sand-water table, visitors watch water carve channels through mounds of sand, demonstrating, in miniature, water's erosive power.
By transferring this story into an exciting play environment, the Ice Age Floods Playground offers visitors of all ages the opportunity to engage with this history through play, opening their eyes to the wonders of the natural world all around them.
Environmental Sensitivity and Sustainability
Stormwater design included the ability to convey water from a 100-year storm event from the 3.5-acre roof of the Podium Sportsplex located along the north edge of the playground through a series of piped structures and shallow swales on the playground site, and eventually into the Spokane river.
Since the playground resides on what was an old rail and shipping yard prior to the 1974 World's Fair Exposition, soil pollution was mitigated consistent with the city's Habitat Management Plan. Highly contaminated soils were removed from the site and remaining soils were either capped or lined.
To reduce the impact on the cities' water supply, the design team worked with the local Health Department, City of Spokane Engineering and Parks staff to engineer a recirculating system for the waterfall/ splash pad feature.
Historic granite curbs recycled from city streets were used as climbing steps in the playground and salvaged equipment from the old Under the Freeway Skatepark, which was dismantled in 2015, was donated and installed in the new Riverfront Skate and Wheels Park.
Additionally, two existing post and beam picnic shelters built around the event of the '74 Expo were maintained and refurbished.
All in all, the Riverfront redevelopment park project was a five-year undertaking with the Ice Age Floods Playground opening in May of 2021.

Team List:
Client - City of Spokane
Landscape Architect - Bernardo Wills Architects
Structural Engineer - Coffman Engineers, Inc.
General Contractor - LaRiviere Inc.
Electrical Engineer - Coffman Engineers, Inc.
Mechanical Engineer - Dumais-Romans, Inc.
Geology/Special Consultant - Nigel Davies, Eastern Washington University
Geotechnical Engineer - Geo Engineers, Inc.
Civil Engineer - Coffman Engineers, Inc.
Stormwater Engineer - HDR, Inc.
Skatepark Designer - Grindline Skateparks, Inc.
Traffic Engineer - Morrison-Maierle, Inc.