Sensory Playscape
LOCATION: NEW YORK, NY
AREA: 1,000 SF
STATUS: COMPLETE 2025
Verona Carpenter Architects designed this multi-sensory recreation space as part of the Restorative City competition that we won in 2021. It is a neuroinclusive space designed with input from elementary school children, including autistic students. The project turns what was a nondescript concrete schoolyard with only a single active structure into a flexible 'garden' with mobile sensory zones: a wheelbarrow bench forms the main building block that we augmented with shade extensions, canopy structures, musical chimes, scented mobiles, and cushions. Arranged individually and in small groups, the benches form occupiable boundaries between sensory environments. We added outdoor lawn-like rugs and provided cushions, bean bags, and mats where kids can lie down or recline. We installed replica bamboo along the brick and stucco walls that form two edges of the play yard, softening the hardscape and providing an interactive texture.
What started out as a project-specific constraint - that the pieces be movable - became a strategy to enable occupant agency. All elements can be moved to, from, and within the site so the children can help re-configure their environment.