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More Than Just a Playground
They probably won’t realize
it, but when more than 100 children swing, run and climb on
the new playgrounds this fall at the Smith College Center
for Early Childhood Education (CECE), they will be romping
in an extensively and impressively planned environment, and
one that reflects the colorful history of their surroundings.
Fort Hill
mansion, the former Center for Early Childhood Education |
Three new playground spaces will
surround the new Center for Early Childhood Education, an
11,000-square-foot building off Lyman Street that will accommodate
the infants, toddlers and preschoolers of people in the Smith
community during daytime hours. The building, which replaces
the school located in the former home known as the Fort Hill
mansion, is scheduled for completion in August. Construction
of the playgrounds will take place in the fall.
As expected, daily time on the playground is an essential
component of the kids’ schedules at Fort Hill, regardless
of the weather.
“We believe that being outside is important and the
children at Fort Hill now go outside no matter what the weather,
even if it is for a short time,” says Martha Lees, director
of the CECE. “Our policy reflects the Norwegian saying:
‘There is never bad weather if you have good clothes.’
We did a lot of research and consulting to develop the policy,
and the playground is important in supporting the philosophy
of the program.”
The new CECE, to be completed
in August |
Nina Antonetti, a lecturer in
Landscape Studies and a member of the playground design committee,
began sketching the playground last spring with an appreciation
of the area’s history. The mansion on the site, which
formerly housed the CECE, was built in 1838 by Samuel Whitmarsh,
father of the local silk industry, who opened the first silk
mill in Northampton in 1834 after constructing a large silk
worm cocoonery on his Fort Hill property.
“I wanted to reflect and honor some of the history of
the site through the landscaping and playground,” explains
Lees. “The history is fascinating.”
A possible theme for the playground, therefore, will build
on the progression of caterpillars to butterflies, a combination
of references to the site’s history and the evolutionary
path of natural silk production, as well as to the school’s
curriculum and popular story books of local children’s
author Eric Carle.
A key element of the new playgrounds will be their naturalized
environment, an attempt to reflect nature as much as possible,
says Antonetti. Numerous studies have shown that children
thrive in such surroundings.
Equally important to the playground’s design has been
an effort to involve several college departments, such as
Landscape Studies, engineering, architecture, Environmental
Studies and the Botanic Garden in a collaborative process,
says Antonetti. A dozen students in her course “Socializing
Landscape” conducted an assessment of the former Fort
Hill playgrounds last spring to compile information for the
new playgrounds. This fall, some 50 of her students have already
volunteered to assist with the design and implementation of
the playgrounds.
“For my introductory courses in Landscape Studies, this
collaboration works perfectly,” says Antonetti. “Everybody
knows about playgrounds, after all.”
Of course, the needs of the playground users—the children—and
their families, as well as school staff members, are foremost,
and the playgrounds will be designed to encourage kids’
creativity, curiosity, education and development of motor
skills. Several play structures will be available for swinging
and climbing while tricycle paths will wend through the area,
says Antonetti.
With its broad curriculum pertaining to the built environment,
Smith is the ideal place to attempt this type of collaboration,
Antonetti says. “Smith is the best undergraduate institution
in the country for the study of landscape and the built environment,
with many professors emphasizing activism. This project is
one more testament to that. It’s a fitting project for
Smith. And it’s a very visual one.”
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