Cypress Hills playgrounds – Brooklyn, NY, USA

Designer – Progettista: Charles Forberg

Place – Luogo: Brooklyn, New York, USA

Year – Anno: 1967

Source: from book American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space, moma.org

In 1964 Forberg was commissioned by MoMA, along with the Citizens’ Committee for Children and the Park Association of New York City, to design a playground at the Cypress Hills Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, a high-rise development housing more than 1,400 families. Forberg’s circular environment, seventy-two feet in diameter, was dominated by a forest of seven-foot-tall vertical concrete slabs that encouraged running and hiding while providing shade and shelter. The playground was admired by critics when it opened in 1967, but there were serious safety concerns, primarily regarding parental sight lines, and the site was eventually renovated with standard equipment.

From book “American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space”:
“The years 1966 to 1968 appear to have been the high point for playgrounds in America. This was the brief time span when the place of playgrounds in the realm of art, itself being shaken up by environmental earth-works that challenged long-standing concepts of permanence, seemed ensured. (…)
Author Jay Jacobs, writing the lead article for the Art in America cover (November/December 1967), proclaimed a new union, saying that “after generations of neglect, the public playground is suddenly in the midst of a
renascence as designers, sculptors, painters and architects strive to create a new world of color, texture and form for toddlers.” (…)
Forberg tried to offer varied experiences. There was a maze formed by vertical 7-foot-high cast-concrete
slabs. These had variable widths and were not set uniformly apart, making it possible for children to have a continuing sense of discovery. There were also three circular enclosures: one slightly banked for water play; one for a tower and slide; and one for a series of concrete half-cylinders for both climbing and hiding. A centralized spherical lighting fixture illuminated the entire site. This lighting devise accentuated the sculptural aspect of the playground, especially when seen from the nearby apartments. Attention to lighting was a useful addition. In the 1940s, there had been discussion about the need to provide lighting on playgrounds but Forberg seems to have exaggerated the possibilities, making lighting critical to his scheme. The museum believed that this space was an ideal spot for children during the day and a gathering place for adults at night. They were so positive of its success
that they retained the concrete fabrication forms in order to replicate them inexpensively on future sites.
Architect Forberg, indicating that nothing was movable, placed himself counter to most contemporary views on how children could affect their environment. He believed that children would be encouraged to move through-out what he hoped would be “rich and varied spaces.” He envisioned abstraction as the means through which kids could make their own choices. Forberg was driven by dedicated aesthetic consideration, something he refined in the house he designed for fabric innovator Jack Lenor Larsen in the 1980 (Longhouse Reserve, East Hampton, New York), and a belief that children need to have action and fantasy in their activities. While his solution now appears to nave been an unforgiving hardscape, it did attempt to provide architectural significance for both children and adults. Like Friedberg’s playground at the Riis House, Forberg’s innovation has been replaced by standard equipment.“

From MOMA New York document No. 49 released on Thursday, May 18, 1967:
The circular playground (72 feet in diameter), designed primarily for children between the ages of 3 and 8, has five main play spaces. A “forest-like” area of 7-foot vertical concrete slabs ranging from 1 to 3 feet wide encourages running, dodging and hiding, and provides shade in the summer and shelter in the winter; circular holes and painted designs add variety. A tower that combines a spiral stair and a brightly colored slide is safer and more enjoyable than the conventional straight slide.
For the more adventurous children a group of vaults offers a variety of small-scale covered, enclosed spaces to hide in, climb on, slide over. An embankment encircling the vault group and a spray fountain forms a small bridge under which water flows in the summer. Parents may watch all the play areas from benches placed at the entrance and halfway around the playground. Illuminated in the evening by a spherical fixture in the center which throws light radially through all of the vertical slabs, the playground looks like a large sculpture from the surrounding houses. (…)
One of the features of the Cypress Hills playgrounds is the original use of color and texture. The slabs, vaults and slide tower are pre-cast, smooth finish, sand-colored concrete with brilliantly colored shapes. The ground is paved with 5 X 12 inch asphalt blocks, laid in a variety of patterns. The fabrication forms for the pre-cast concrete elements can be reused to cast additional pieces, thus serving as a prototype for parks of similar construction. This has already been done as part of the Cypress Hills project in a smaller play area (32 feet in diameter)
nearby, where the same shapes were used.
The material used in the Cypress Hills Playgrounds explores a new approach to the problem of supervision and maintenance. As the architect, Charles Forberg, stresses:
“This design intentionally accepts traditionally rugged and indeetructible materials with the belief that these can, in provocative arrangements, provide children with play excitement which does not depend on the materials themselves, but rather on the spaces they create. All of the parts are stationary, but they are intended to intrigue the child to move and to give him rich and varied spaces to be in, run through, climb up…”

Nel 1964 Forberg fu commissionato dal MoMA, insieme al Comitato dei cittadini per i bambini e l’associazione dei Parchi di New York City, per la progettazione di un parco giochi a Cypress Hills a East New York, Brooklyn, un grattacielo per più di 1.400 famiglie. L’ambiente circolare di Forberg, di settanta-due piedi di diametro, è stato dominato da una foresta di lastre di cemento verticale alti due metri che ha incoraggiato il gioco fornendo ombra e riparo. Aperto nel 1967, il parco giochi fu ammirato dai critici, ma al suo interno sono poi stati riscontrati problemi di sicurezza, soprattutto per quanto riguardava le linee parentali di vista, e il sito è stato rimpiazzato alla fine con un equipaggiamento standard.
Gli anni 1966-1968 sembrano essere stati il culmine più alto per i campi da gioco in America. Jay Jacobs scrisse “dopo generazioni di abbandono, il parco giochi pubblico è improvvisamente nel bel mezzo di una rinascita tra designers, scultori, pittori e architetti, che si sforzano di creare un nuovo mondo di colori, texture e forme per i più piccoli.” Forberg cercò di offrire nel parco svariate esperienze. C’era un labirinto di larghezza variabile che rendeva possibile per i bambini di avere un continuo senso di scoperta. C’erano tre recinti circolari: uno leggermente incassato per il gioco d’acqua; uno per una torre e lo scivolo; e uno per una serie di cilindi di calcestruzzo tagliati per arrampicata e nascondino. Un apparecchio d’illuminazione centralizzata sferica illuminava dall’interno l’intero sito. L’attenzione all’illuminazione fu un’aggiunta utile e pioniera. Forberg, indicando che nulla era mobile, si mise contro le opinioni contemporanee che sostenevano come i bambini avrebbero dovuto influenzare il loro ambiente. Egli credeva che i bambini sarebbero incoraggiati a muoversi in tutto quello che sperava sarebbe stati “spazi ricchi e vari.” Considerava l’astrazione come il mezzo attraverso il quale i bambini avrebbero potuto fare le proprie scelte. Forberg era guidato da una considerazione estetico atrema, qualcosa che ha poi affinato nel corso della sua carriera, con la convinzione che i bambini hanno bisogno di essere stimolati ad avere fantasia e azione nelle loro attività. Mentre la sua soluzione appare ora un impietoso hardscape, si può dire che ha tentato di fornire un significato architettonico delle aree gioco per adulti e bambini.
Una delle caratteristiche del parco giochi di Cypress Hills fu l’uso originale di colore e texture. Le lastre, volte e Torre diapositiva furono prefabbricati, con finitura liscia, color sabbia e cemento con forme brillantemente colorate. Charles Forberg, sottolineò: “questo disegno intenzionalmente accetta tradizionalmente un design robusto e indistruttibile nei materiali con la convinzione che questi possono, in modalità provocatoria, fornire i bambini di giochi eccitanti che non dipendono dai materiali stessi, ma piuttosto dagli spazi che creano. Tutte le parti sono fisse, ma sono destinate ad incuriosire il bambino, per farlo muovere e per dargli spazi ricchi e vari per essere dentro, per attraversare, per salire… ”

Francesco Tonini