Landscape Architect Articles

Treetop Village06-14-17 | Feature

Treetop Village
Sinai Akiba Jewish Academy in L.A.

The Sinai Akiba Jewish Academy in L.A. went with Themed Concepts???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE? ???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?Dream Deck???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE? play system, the ???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?Treetop Village,???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE? incorporating log-themed posts, recycled plastic deck planks and hand-sculpted GFRC foliage toppers.

When Sinai Akiba Jewish Academy in Los Angeles desired a play space for its children,Couples Watches it engaged the playground designers at Themed Concepts www.themedconcepts.com. The academy had little room for a playground, but desired a play space that would shut out the sights and sounds of the city. This was a challenge, as the available space was directly over an underground parking garage along L.A.???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?s busy Wilshire Boulevard.

The glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) boulder combines Portland cement, silica sand, alkaline-resistant chopped fiberglass and some additives. The mixture is applied in thin layers into a mold. The fiberglass adds flexibility to the concrete and lightens the weight. Concrete has great compression strength, but is not flexible and has practically no tensile strength. GFRC has three times higher tensile strength than unreinforced concrete and helps prevent anything larger than hairline cracks from appearing in the finished product.

As the design was being developed and customized to meet the capacity, installation and size restrictions of the space, the staff at Sinai Akiba decided to opt for a custom version of the playground designer???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?s ???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?Dream Deck???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE? play system, the ???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?Treetop Village.???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?

With log-themed posts, recycled plastic deck planks and hand-sculpted GFRC foliage toppers, the Treetop Village was slightly downsized from the original design to adhere to weight and dimensional restrictions, creating a finished playground design custom-fitted to meet the Academy???????(R)???AE?????(R)???AE?s exact needs.

As seen in LASN magazine, June 2017.