A Lesson in Patience: Natural Playgrounds Made From Trees

Jennifer Lance — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:10:14 +0000

Kids growing up in the mountains where I live love to tie young trees’ trunks into knots. As you drive along the roads, you often see older trees with trunks twisted long ago by young hands. Plantware has taken this concept even further in designing a living playground for children by manipulating roots and trunks.

Plantware has made benches, love seats, street lights, gates, etc. from living trees. “Kinder Forest: A Living Playground” takes the idea even further:

KinderForest gives children real trees to play with, gives parents a natural alternative for their children and gives earth urban reforestation that is functional, enjoyable and green. Creating structures from living trees means that ~95% of the playground’s mass is taken from the air using local sunlight and rain. No gasoline-burning chainsaws, trucks, ships or waste. Such structures can live for 700 years and are self repairing, earthquake safe, oxygen producing and provide a habitat for wildlife coinciding with their purpose for humans.

Grow-Your-Own Architecture

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:44:28 +0000

This has got to be one of the coolest green concepts I’ve seen in a long time: shaping the malleable roots of ficus trees into useful, eco-friendly structures like benches, playground equipment, bus stops and even umbrella stands. The “eco-architecture” technique could one day even be used to grow homes, according to the researchers at Plantware and American Friends of Tel Aviv University. (Be sure to check out the mind-boggling gallery of tree-based structures at Plantware’s online gallery.)

Image credit: American Friends of Tel Aviv University

Green Options » Plantware

A Lesson in Patience: Natural Playgrounds Made From Trees

Grow-Your-Own Architecture