What type of cities do families want their children and grandchildren to grow up in? Surely not noisy, polluted and car-dominated communities! Most families envision a neighborhood with green spaces, public amenities and streetscapes. These features strengthen communities and lead to happier, healthier families.
If you’re currently working on an urban playground, it helps to have a few trusted design concepts you can refer to. Below are six design ideas that work well with urban spaces. And they can be easily modified to fit the community’s wants, needs and budget.
1. Compact Modern City
The GT Modern City playground line from CR Studio Design is a popular option for urban play spaces. Inspired by modern architecture, this design features multi-tiered surfaces, ground-level activities and challenging climbers. The clean and compact lines give this playground a small footprint and modern look, while the steel construction ensures long-term durability.
2. Sustainable Custom Metal
Another option is a custom metal design. Our custom metal playground lines allow you to accommodate large or small spaces, create a unique modern look for your city and provide durable high quality equipment for play spaces. There is also more freedom with this design because you can carefully balance art and architecture. Custom metal playgrounds are a great option for urban communities that want to tell a story or incorporate geometric shapes and functions.
3. Climbing Ropes and Nets
Kids who live in urban communities tend to have less green space than those living in suburban or rural communities. A playground that features ropes and nets makes the most use out of tight spaces and provides kids various opportunities for climbing and brachiating experiences. With CR Studio Design, you can incorporate ropes and nets into any design. Look at our net and rope towers, as well as linear nets or circuits.
4. Nature Inspired Playgrounds
On the opposite side of modern playground equipment are nature-inspired playgrounds. These play spaces incorporate elements found in nature like fallen logs, stump climbers and boulders made of GFRC (glass fiber reinforced concrete) that look and feel just like tree bark and granite. Children can experience nature right in the middle of their city, or even on a roof top playground. GFRC is very durable and works extremely well for creating themed play areas as well as bringing a playful art component to the play space. Adding planter boxes and landscaping can create a natural oasis for the entire family to explore and enjoy!
5. Refreshing Water Play and Splash Pads
Because urban families tend to have smaller yards, most have to use public swimming pools during the summer. While this might be fine for older kids, it’s not ideal for younger children. Therefore, we often recommend incorporating some type of interactive water play into an urban play space. Families can cool off at spraygrounds, younger children can enjoy bubblers and spouts of water, add misters to public gathering spaces for guest comfort — these are all ways to incorporate water into your urban play and gathering spaces.
6. Interactive Play
There’s a huge demand for interactive play spaces, particularly in urban areas attempting to keep pre-teens and teens busy. These playgrounds meet the demands of a new generation by combining digital technology with the real world. Our interactive play designs include the Sutu sports wall, Fono outdoor DJ booth, the Sona play and dance arch, Memo gaming and educational play pillars and the Toro sports arena. Bring “smart park” technology to your urban play spaces with our Yalp interactive play and sports designs.
Hopefully, these design ideas will help you start planning a custom playground or outdoor recreational space for an urban community. Contact CR Studio Design to learn more about the recreational amenities we recommend having in today’s cities.