The new playground for the Princeton Friends School blends architecture and landscape forming a rich experiential environment that children can interpret in many ways. The playground loosely suggests farm structures in a vernacular landscape leading to a play experience more akin to playing in a farm yard than on traditional play equipment. An adjacent children’s garden is and extension of the play area.  

Located on an historic Quaker site, the playground references the agrarian nature of the original settlement. The new architecture is rendered in a contemporary language but its forms, scale and materials relate to the nearby historic structures.  A slatted playhouse has an adjacent climbing tower, a play wall crosses a sandbox and a new outdoor classroom pavilion is set next to an historic barn where it is a base for children’s garden programs. A rectangular plinth defines the playground and is fronted by a planted strip that forms a storm water drainage feature culminating at a water play area. Native trees are emphasized in keeping with a more rural landscape.