"Free play", where children direct their own activities, alone and with their peers is fundamentally important to their social, intellectual and emotional development" said Hart, also a consultant on Imagination Playground. "If we design a diverse environment, rich with "loose parts", it will afford them with a range of opportunities for free play that is much more diverse than just running, climbing, sliding and swinging, and they will play for hours!"
Successfully implemented in European models, "play workers" staff the Imagination Playground. These trained adults work with the kids, spurring their imaginations, while facilitating and supervising activities. Play workers are an important part of the Imagination Playground concept, allowing children to play in ways that would not be possible without supervision. They will circulate through Imagination Playground to provide children with safe tools and props that can be used for digging, molding, hauling sand or carrying water, as well as suggest new ways of play, so that The Children are engaged whether it is their 50th visit or their first.
Imagination Playground was initiated as a pro-bono project by the Rockwell Group. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has provided a grant for the construction of the Playground. Rockwell and the City are seeking to raise additional monies from the private sector for an endowment. Construction is slated to begin late 2007.
Rockwell Group is an award winning, cross-disciplinary 200-person architecture and design practice founded by
David Rockwell. Based in New York City, Rockwell Group specializes in hospitality, cultural, healthcare, theater and film design. Recent commissions include The Children's Hospital at Montefiore, a series of public school libraries for the Robin Hood Foundation's Library Initiative, the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame at the Time Warner Center; Town restaurant and Chambers hotel (New York City); W New York and W Union Square (New York City); the renovation of the FAO Schwarz Flagship on Fifth Avenue; Cirque du Soleil (Orlando, Florida); the Broadway musicals "Hairspray" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"; the Academy Awards' Kodak Theatre; and numerous restaurants located internationally including New York restaurants Nobu Fifty Seven, Country, Bar Americain, as well as Gordon Ramsay's Maze in London and Roppongi Hills in Tokyo.
New York City Department of Parks & Recreation is the steward of almost 29,000 acres of land --14 percent of New York City --including more than 4,000 individual properties ranging from Yankee Stadium and Central Park to community gardens and Greenstreets. We operate more than 800 athletic fields and nearly 1,000 playgrounds; we manage four major stadiums, 550 tennis courts, 51 public pools, 34 recreation centers, 12 nature centers, 13 golf courses, and 14 miles of beaches; we care for 1,200 monuments and 22 historic house museums; we look after 500,000 street trees, and two million more in parks. We are New York City's principal provider of athletic facilities. We are home to free concerts, world-class sports events, and cultural festivals. For more information about Parks, visit our website at www.nyc.gov/parks.
