The design for the Pine Cobble School playground compliments a campus and program that instills in children a connection to nature. The grounds bear the mark of the Olmsted Brothers who like their father, Fredrick Law Olmstead, designed numerous parks, campuses, and estates with the intent of embracing nature as a vital resource for health and social cohesion. The school continues this objective as it helps students interpret and learn from their environment to face the challenge of preserving it.

 The playground is divided into multiple play zones to offer children an outlet for their varied and wavering interests. Much like in a forest, these zones are meant to be discovered and are not immediately visually and physically accessible (accept by supervision). Children navigate their way into a space which creates unexpected social encounters in addition to disrupting crowding which tends to happen when a playground is an open playfield. The route a child chooses to take is just as much part of the activity of play as the play feature or zone they initially seek.

Included in the play zones are features that peak children’s interests on a traditional level (climbing elements, swings, slides etc) while also leaving plenty of room for items that children can manipulate. Unlike a playground entirely built of manufactured equipment which is static and unyielding, significant attention is given to play activities where children can experiment and alter materials much like in an adventure playground. The ability to engage and control their surrounding is empowering and gives children a sense of ownership when they can appreciate the impact they can have on the physical world.

Every effort is made to craft play features from natural and quality materials. Black locust wood is applied to most of the play elements which is native to the region and ideally suited for outdoor use over any other species. The aesthetic of wood does not make a playground “natural” but it does begin to convey origin and beauty which is not replicable through other means. Plastics are used at a minimum and generally repurposed from other sources or composed of high-grade HPDE which can be recycled.