Every natural playground starts the same way: with a blank site, an open question, and someone willing to imagine what the space could become.
For Shane Brown, Senior Landscape Architect at Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, that starting point is oddly specific, and completely open. “I think the first thing I think about is the context around that open space and really the people it’s serving,” Shane says.
Shane manages the design and implementation of many of the projects, from first sketch to finished build. It’s a role that puts him at the center of what he calls his favorite part of the job: the space between a wild idea and a working design.
Starting Without Constraints
Ask Shane what makes the Bienenstock playground design process different, and he doesn’t point to software or specs, he points to freedom.
“What I love about the design process here is that we do it all,” he says. “From the design, those early crazy ideas that kind of come out on the trace paper.”
In those first sessions, the team resists narrowing too early. “You really don’t want to be bound by too many constraints in those early stages,” Shane explains. “You just want to think of the best ideas and then kind of figure out how they work.”
Figuring Out How It Works
Once the early ideas are down on paper, the real work and, for Shane, the real joy begins.
“That’s probably my favorite part: the figuring out how this works,” he says. An idea that “seems crazy when you first put it down on paper” gets flushed out with detail through iteration after iteration, tested and refined until it holds up.
Every idea must clear three bars before it becomes a natural playground:
- Does it support childhood development?
- Does it work for the site it’s being placed in?
- Is it constructible?
“I think that going through those different stages is really fun for me because we do a lot of wacky things here,” Shane says. That is one of the many things that set Bienenstock apart from other playground design companies.
From Wacky to Buildable
The wacky ideas aren’t a detour; they’re the point. Shane and the team take the boldest early concepts and narrow them down until they satisfy every requirement.
“Taking those crazy ideas that we have and narrowing them down to where they’re not only satisfying the needs for playful elements in the space, but also the educational development, and they’re buildable and constructible,” Shane says.
It’s that full arc, from an open site to a landscape children can climb, dig, and discover in, that keeps Shane engaged, project after project. “Really that kind of process from start to finish is really fun for me to go through,” he says.
Curious what that process could look like for your school, park, museum, or community space?
