The Sara Jackman Playground by PLANT Architect Inc.

The Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study (JICS) Lab School is an award-winning preschool-to-Grade 6 school affiliated with the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. We redesigned its compact, hemmed-in outdoor play area to support JICS’ emphasis on creative play that encourages students’ mental and physical development and enhances their connection to the natural world.

A Laboratory School’s playground should challenge norms and is used for live research. Previously a barren asphalt surface, enclosing a few trees, the new Sara Jackman Playground is an engaging, multi-level environment. Its destinations include a sand-and-water-play zone; a boomerang-shaped climbing structure; a figure-8 tricycle track with a tree root-protecting bridge; an all-weather story-time/imaginative play area with a leaf-shaped canopy; and a wood mound that provides amphitheatre seating for the Leaf Canopy ‘stage’ and becomes a sliding slope in the winter. With its varying steepness challenges, this mound invites kids of all ages to climb it and wander across it. A hard-surface area provides space for shooting baskets and other vigorous sports activities. New infrastructural elements – an accessibility ramp, storage sheds – are not simply utilitarian: they expand the spectrum of multi-level play and climbing opportunities. Each zone supports multiple, age-appropriate modes of play, and the yard accommodates multiple simultaneous activities – sometimes right on top of each other.

The new playground supports three central tenets of JICS Lab School pedagogy: outdoor play that allows each child to build a relationship with nature; open-ended creative play that involves constructing or pretending (and often getting wet or muddy!); and what is called ‘risky’ play. Risky play encourages kids to test their physical prowess, in ways appropriate to each child’s age and abilities. “Research now tells us that risky play – those thrilling, uncertain activities like climbing, moving at speed, and trying new things – is essential for a child’s development,” say JICS Lab School Principal Richard Messina. “It fosters resilience, builds confidence, and sharpens problem-solving skills.”

The previous playground was too juvenile for JICS’ older students. New, climbable features challenge this age group – and establish ‘big-kid’ territory, i.e., smaller kids can’t scale the Boomerang climber, so this structure’s upper level is a big kids’ hangout. Meanwhile, its lower levels engage smaller kids.

Improvised play with ‘props’ such as tarps, cable spools, and pool noodles is an important aspect of JICS creative play. We designed two colourfully shingled, organically shaped sheds – ‘The Potato’ and ‘The Onion’ – for storing this equipment. Embedded with climbing-wall grips leading to loft space above its central ‘cave’, The Potato doubles as a popular multi-level play zone.

An accessibility ramp providing access between the playground and the school’s heritage building was part of the design brief. Our team saw this requirement as an opportunity to introduce many additional multi-level play possibilities. Technically, what we designed is not a ramp at all, but rather a long, sloped sidewalk. Its incline of less than five percent is so gentle that many mandated ramp requirements, such as a width narrow enough for a wheelchair user to grasp handrails on either side, did not apply.

We conceived this walkway as an engaging, site-traversing journey. Varying in width, it hugs a large, crescent-shaped bay window as it rises toward the new accessible entrance. The narrow pocket of space between the walkway’s inner edge and the rear of the school is a ‘secret sensory garden’ – a quiet nook containing plants of different shapes, colours, textures, and fragrances. Along its outer edge, child-sized niches border the sandbox zone, (which features a water pump, and boulders unearthed on the site). Stepped log segments invite kids to climb through splayed pickets and up onto the sloped walkway.

Existing Callery Pear, White ash, Freeman’s maples and other trees were retained to provide shade and climbing opportunities. New tree species, including Agincourt Beauty Lilac, Cutleaf Staghorn Sumac, and Swamp White Oak, were added, as were shrubs, grasses, perennials, and bulbs. The previously mentioned Leaf Canopy not only looks like a leaf but acts like one: by directing rain onto tree roots via its sloped roof and splayed, colander-like stem, it serves as a teaching tool for highlighting water’s importance to living things.

JICS Lab School staff logs indicate that both the number of injuries and incidents of social conflict have gone down since the new playground opened: Says Principal Messina: “The kids have so many places to play, and are so excited and challenging themselves.”

• Other credits you need or wish to write:
Civil Engineer: KWA Site Development Consulting
Structural Engineer: Engineering Link Incorporated
Mechanical Engineer: GPY+ Associates Engineering Inc.
Electrical Engineer: Summit Engineering
Arborist: Urban Forest Associates Inc.
Code: CodeNext Inc.
Costing: A.W. Hooker Associates Ltd.
CSA Inspector: RS North America
Photography: Steven Evans Photography

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