Panoramic View Playground

Sharswood, North Philadelphia, PA 19121

A proposed interactive sculpture, for the Philadelphia Housing Authority and Seybert Foundation, that seeks to provide Philadelphia youth with access to a safe and elevated line of sight. 

Membrane roof and tensile lattice shell of the Shukhov Rotunda, Russia, 1895.

The psychic space of a young person is limited by what they see and the environments that they traverse. Something as simple as watching the sun set behind the horizon is not a public spectacle, but rather something that has become a luxury afforded to those privileged with an unobstructed view. None of the 300+ parks or playgrounds, offered by Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, provide youth with the ability to see beyond their neighborhood or beyond the city lines. Developers have denied youth from the rooftops, reserving this real estate for bars, restaurants, and private residences. Yet, we believe that House Museum’s panoramic view playground—for Sharswood—will stand as a sanctuary and a monument of hope. Its visibility will remind the city that the children are here. In this new and transportive environment, youth will play in the heights—elevated to an imaginative place where they can see a new future.

Modeled in part after Palle Nielsen's A Model For a Qualitative Society. Moderna Museet. Stockholm, Sweden, 1968.

The Adziogol Lighthouse, by Vladimir Shukhov (1911), is the tallest vertical lattice hyperboloid structure in Ukraine.

 "Children's patterns of play vary with changes in the physical framework for their play, and there is a positive connection between the degree of variation in the playing unit and the satisfaction of the children's physical and sensory needs." 

Palle Nielsen, Stockholm, 1968.

Reference site: Vaux Big Picture High School, Rooftop Basketball Court.