KaBOOM! announced the winners of the Play Everywhere Challenge this week.
Gail Cornwall reports: "[KaBOOM!] "awarded $1 million to spur 50 new projects that create opportunities for urban children to play at places like bus stops, barber shops and Laundromats."
Cornwall highlights some of the inners to showcase the creativity and variety of the winning projects. Among the winners:
- A "giant solar-powered bubble maker that on sunny days will send bubbles drifting over a busy Minneapolis thoroughfare,"
- "periscopes built out of PVC tubes at East Harlem bus stops,"
- "retractable jump ropes outside barber shops and salons in Richmond, Va.,"
- "sidewalks in Detroit "repainted to resemble sprinting tracks,"
- and slides that "pop up next to stairways used to commute through the slopes."
Each of the winning projects has its own project page on the KaBoom! website.
The 50 winners were chosen from more than 1,000 entries. The Play Everywhere Challenge has support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, Playworld, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
FULL STORY: Giant Bubbles and Urban Periscopes Among Winners of Play Contest
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Orlando Pledges to Improve Walkability
A city report highlights successes and failures in building safer transportation infrastructure and reducing VMT in 2023.
New York Transit Agency Launches Performance Dashboard
The tool increases transparency about the agency’s performance on a variety of metrics.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.