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.
Read the full story: Giant Bubbles and Urban Periscopes Among Winners of Play Contest
Planetizen Week in Review: September 24, 2016
More than one city made big planning news this week. You only need two minutes and thirty seconds to find out more.
For Playable Cities: Make the City a Playground
The "Using Behavioral Economics to Create Playable Cities" report suggests that so much time spent in front of screens, and the continued need to counter the obesity epidemic, requires new thinking about play for children living in cities.
Historic Queens park is getting a $120M upgrade
The borough's largest park will undergo significant upgrades for accessibility, flood mitigation and historic preservation.
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California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
Chicago breaks ground on $3 billion megadevelopment
The new neighborhood, titled Foundry Park, will one day host 3,700 residences.
Desperate measures: Advocates weigh draining Lake Powell to fill Colorado River
Draining the reservoir could reduce evaporation losses by a couple hundred thousand acre-feet.
This road in NYC is infamously dangerous — and Mamdani can't fix it
New York City's Ocean Parkway is known for reckless driving, but the power to implement safety measures lies with the state rather than the city.
One of Denver’s busiest corridors to gain BRT
The project will span 18 miles and contain 74 bus rapid transit stations.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
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Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
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Montrose County
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