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| Black Cat Moving supports Parisite Skatepark. "Affordable, experienced, and reliable. (504) 302 8598." |
Parisite Skatepark has grown from a DIY Bring-Your-Own-Ramp park to an official New Orleans Recreation Development Commission recreation space. Interspersed throughout the permanent concrete ramps, Parisite sretains elements of an adventure playground, with loose parts all around - movable and available for interpretative use by park participants.
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| loose parts at Parisite, large and small. |
By Lady Allen of Hurtwood's standards*, there are two official "adventure playgrounds" that I know of in the US -- many more if you count informal spaces. This lack of much-needed exploratory learning environments for youth is connected to the liability insurance required for public play spaces: widely-recognized codes and standards (ASTM International) guarantee safety and longevity of play structures by describing approved construction materials, designs, and methods. What are acceptable safe "best practices" for playground elements that are impermanent and open to interpretation, with risk as an essential park of play?
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| Charlie Thomas in New Orleans, from the first Preservation Skateboards ad. When static forms are a part of a playground, the flexibility of how we interface with these forms determines the possiblities for play. Variation in form + imagination + flexible tools = infinite possibilities of interaction. |
Enter skateboarding: a relatively brand-new form of recreation, it is the 3rd most popular teenage sport in the United States and sorely underrepresented in most parks systems. Based in free-form creativity and exploration of our environment, some cities have even developed skatepark master plans (Seattle Citywide Skatepark Plan is a great example of this). ASTM F2334-09 - "Standard Guide for Above-Ground Public Use Skatepark Facilities" specifies methods for safe skateable space, which can be moveable and open to interpretation. By creating specifications for accepted replicability, these ASTM standards allow for municipalities to accept + insure skateparks instead of pulling out bulldozers in fear of someone hurting themselves. By paying attention to ASTM Standards, Parisite Skatepark's DIY features were not demolished by the forces that be, and instead have been accepted by a recreation department looking for relevant ways to provide for local youth.
Is it best to take something as organic, spontaneous, and alive as adventure play and codify it for acceptance? How far can a "best practice" be stretched to balance invigorating, innovative, efficient usage of our world with safety? I can't answer that. But if it is a means towards folks of all ages accessing otherwise-nonexistant physical, unprescribed, and interactive environments, I'm for it.
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| Will free play keep humans from becoming cyborgs? Not by itself, but it's a start! |
*"There was a wealth of waste material on it and no man-made fixtures. The children could dig, build houses, experiment with sand, water or fire and play games of adventure and make believe." via Play and Playground Encyclopedia