White walls and light-hued furnishings match the airiness of the home's design. Douglas made the dining table from maple milled on site atop a Corbusier LC 6 base. A Heracleum pendant by Moooi hangs above it.
The original pyramid at Dattner’s Adventure Playground contained building and art materials handed out by a play supervisor, which allowed children to “rearrange their physical world to their liking—one way to exert some control over their experience,” according to the architect.
For his Adventure Playground, Dattner incorporated some of the elements of the wilder European versions (where children build their own play structures).
At Riis House, Friedberg favored abstract shapes that could fulfill multiple fantasies: "Literal design restricts a child's imagination, for he can bring to a playground, in his hand or in his mind, any fire engine. An object with only one use creates attitudes and experiences with one dimension.”
Dattner designed five playgrounds for Central Park, including the Ancient Playground (near the Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum) and the West 81st Street playground (shown in plan), which originally offered a panoply of streams, sprays, and shallow pools. (The circular forms were modified to octagons and the water channel eliminated before construction.
Although none of Noguchi’s seminal playground designs for Manhattan, such as Play Mountain and the Levy Memorial, ever made it out of the maquette stage, Playscapes was built in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park in 1976 and rehabilitated 20 years later.
