Tall Trees Nature Playscape

Tall Trees Nature Playscape

The Tall Trees Playground at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education is a nature-based playground that’s increasing accessibility and inclusion for nature-based play. Using information gathered through an engagement process with Schuylkill Center staff and nature preschool students, Hinge Collective developed a design for a refreshed nature playground that seamlessly increases accessible play features into an existing forest.

The design incorporates best management practices for preserving trees during construction to weave a wheelchair accessible path through the entire play space. The path connects to a custom lifted sandbox, a modified row boat that allows a wheelchair access, a Phanatic Fort that provides an armature for kids to build their own natural shelters with loose parts, a slide embedded in a hill, and many other features. Rather than separating play by access needs or labeling spaces as simply “active” or “calm,” this design embraces the in-between, acknowledging that needs are fluid and that accessible design should not be reduced to two extremes.

This is a playground that layers options into the landscape, making space for all without making it feel like a compromise. This playground doesn’t prescribe a “right” way to play—it offers choices. Whether someone is seeking movement or stillness, connection or solitude, sensory input or calm, or somewhere in between, they can find a space that fits their needs.

Photo Credits: Sahar Coston-Hardy