One of the distinct benefits of choosing the career path I’ve chosen and having the lifestyle that I do is that sometimes I get to spend time working on projects simply because I believe in them, and those projects can happen during traditional working hours. For a couple of weeks in July, I was helping with one of these very kinds of projects. There’s a project going on right now at the Smith Playground, a gem located in Fairmount Park here in Philadelphia that provides a safe place for kids to get away from the concrete jungle, revel in bucolic splendor and just play. And did I mention there’s a hundred-year-old wooden slide there, too? Seriously, it’s a pretty amazing place.
The project is part of the run-up to Greenbuild, which is the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual conference set to be held in Philly in November. Each Greenbuild has what’s called a Legacy Project, a way for the conference to leave a legacy in the place where the gathering is held. Philly’s Legacy Project entails building an Adventure Playground at Smith. (You can read more about the nuts and bolts of the project in my articles on Grid and iSpring‘s blogs.) What’s an Adventure Playground, you say? Well, it’s just about what you’d expect from the name. It’s a space for kids to build their own adventure as they play with free-form materials to make stuff, storytell and imagine themselves in a different world–all as they engage with the natural environment around them. Sounds pretty cool, right? I assure you–it is.