I’ve been working part time at a professional sculpture studio for the past few weeks that specializes in creating innovative interactive play sculptures for children’s play areas.
The projects come to a studio in a variety of ways.
Sometimes a landscape architect who has designed a large city park has designated an area as a sculptural playground and the sculpture firm , Interplay Design, comes up with the detailed design concept.
Most of the time a scaled sketch is drafted up and a model is made after the basic site plan arrive from the landscape architect.
Then the actual sculpting begins.
A frame constructed of rebar and metal lath is crafted first and then it is covered with a specific concrete mix. Then the details are sculpted in a stucco/ cement like matrix . Occasionally hand sculpted fossils are applied .
After the final stucco color coat is applied then the mosaics are applied.
There are a few more steps after and inbetween but that’s about it in a nut shell.
Below is a recent interactive water play sculpture that Interplay Design Studio recently completed.
It is about 30 feet long and stands about 4.5 feet tall at the tallest point.
It will be set in 1 foot of sand.
As the kids play around the sculpture they will start to dig away the sand and find fossils embedded in the sculpture.
There will also be water cascading down the mosaic rill.
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| From Interplay Project |
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| From Interplay Project |
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| From Interplay Project |
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| From Interplay Project |
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2 comments:
that is so cool. Our local science museum has a fountain that is similar in function, but not nearly as artistic. the children have SO much fun with the cascading water. I love the mosaic.
Wow! I came to your blog to find the link for the play areas you have done in the past and here is this perfectly timed post. Oh, how I wish I could have something like this for my play space!
Thanks for posting this and giving me yet another feature to dream about.
Angie
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