betsy head MEMORIAL PLAYGROUND

Location: Brooklyn, New York
Client: New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

The project involves the reconstruction of a 1.5 acre portion of the 10-acre Betsy Head Memorial Park. The site was chosen to implement the Imagination Playground concept, a play concept developed by The Rockwell Group that encourages child-directed, unstructured free play in an interactive, transformable space. MKW collaborated with Rockwell on the design and served as project manager throughout all phases of the work. The Playground provides opportunities for fantasy and cooperative play, in addition to the traditional running, jumping, and climbing. Children can manipulate their environment and create a play space of their own with sand, water and giant foam blocks. At Betsy Head, the Imagination Playground is the centerpiece of the playground, a secure play space for children ages 2-12 carefully situated amongst the mature plane trees that populate the park. The play ramp, a defining feature of the playground, encircles the Imagination Playground weaving in and around the trees, while maintaining sufficient clearance of the tree trunks and roots.