What is a Bienenstock playground?
- All aspects of early childhood development are considered in the design
- Adam Bienenstock, the industry's leader in designing Natural Playgrounds, works with an ECE specialist and a Kinesiologist, to ensure that your children's needs are met
- His philosophy behind accessibility allows him to anticipate the needs of all children, and a Bienenstock natural playground is fully accessible
- All of his designs always include mature trees and indigenous species
- All materials are either of a natural nature or where this is not possible the use of 100% recycled materials is prescribed
- His natural playground designs spread these gross motor activities throughout the space and add creative play, quiet space, music, art and nature
- Bienenstock natural playgrounds are inviting, not intimidating; suggestive, not prescriptive; inclusive, not exclusive, and open to all who want to explore nature and their own imagination
Components of a Bienenstock playground are?
Safety in Bienenstock design:
- We always design our playgrounds to meet CSA standards. We use these standards as guidelines for the safety of children. CSA Standards require a "Crash Test"
- Our natural playgrounds are designed to eliminate fall heights
- Our version of a climbing apparatus is hills and fallen logs
- The fall height from logs is under 12" for children 18 months - 5years, and under 24" for 5 years and up
- Our hills have gradual inclines with no sharp drops, which make fall heights 0"
- Our signature component is the Hillslide. We install slides in sides of hills with overhead barriers forcing children to sit down at the slide instead of jumping or running down the slide
Our Natural Playgrounds consist of 4 different surfaces
- Grass (only in areas where children will not trample it)
- Sand (in sandbox areas)
- Mulch (the predominant surface for most areas)
- Rubber Surfacing (walking paths (especially on inclines), trike paths, tracks)
Sharp Objects/Edges
Fallen Logs
- All fallen logs are cut to join end to end
- All edges are sanded and rounded until perfectly smooth
- All stumps are securely installed into the ground
- All edges are sanded and rounded until perfectly smooth
- All sharp edges are sanded smooth and rounded off
- All pointed edges are cut flush and sanded smooth
- All bolts/nuts or fastening hardware are countersunk to eliminate the chance of piercing or cutting
For more information about safety click here.
Suggestive Design:
Bienenstock playgrounds use Suggestive Design, instead of Prescriptive Design:
- Suggestive Design: the process of designing playgrounds that have no specific method of play; a child’s imagination is the determining factor
- Prescriptive Design: the process of designing playgrounds that have a specific method of play that children are supposed to follow
Suggestive design allows for a child’s imagination to determine how they are going to play with a particular component
Suggestive design spreads out components in such a way as to not identify a clear path from one to the next. It is always up to the children how the playgrounds should be used
Information was taken from here.
Videos of natural playgrounds:
1. McCleary Natural Playground - Design Animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgsa0qSdAMI
2.Natural playground at KPAF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sak9nqXECXI&NR=1
3. Natrual Playground.mov: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrgajgSX2o&NR=1
4. Montcrest Bienenstock Natural Playground.avi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECPWKuVb0Xs&feature=related
Here is one more video for people to watch, it had the "leading expert" himself Adam Bienenstock lol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwJPi4rA2qI&feature=related
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