New Playground

Three years ago, the school set in motion a plan to update and enhance all three outdoor play spaces on campus. Renovations began in 2012 with a re-imagined, naturalized playground for the Pre-Primary School and upgrades to the front field for the 1st–8th grades. Now, with a compelling design for the Primary School’s back playground in its final stages, Lowell is gearing up to begin construction and bring the plan to life.

At Lowell, play is embraced as an essential part of the school day for children. It supports all aspects of children’s development—physical, cognitive, social, and emotional: as students run, jump, climb, pretend, and play games, they are experimenting, creating, making decisions, developing friendships, and resolving conflicts. In other words, they are learning. This kind of learning, both self-motivated and self-directed, is very meaningful to children, and it’s crucial in promoting creativity and independence.

When play is understood this way—as central to children’s learning and growth—the design of a playground becomes as important as the design of a classroom. Of course, a playground should be a place where children can take a break from classroom learning, get some fresh air, and run around, but a well-designed playground can be so much more—a testing ground for ideas, a practice field for developing skills, a staging ground for the imagination, and a safe place to take risks. Lowell’s new playground will offer all of these opportunities.

As the design process for the new playground began, some big questions bubbled up:

• How can the new design address the different ways that children play?
• How can we expand the concept of play?
• How can the playground best reflect our values as a school?

These questions helped frame the goals of the project. Driving the design is a desire to increase the possibilities for different kinds of play—large group play and small group play, boisterous games and quiet games, ball play and dramatic play, building, exploring, creating, climbing, swinging, and running. Offering options for play that are “challenging and engaging for the full age range of children is also a key to
the design,” explains Head of School Debbie Gibbs. And, making sure that all children can participate in the range of play options and have the opportunity to take some risks demands that safety and accessibility are taken into account.

These goals for children’s learning and play are balanced with a respect for the topography and unique natural features of the space. The school is lucky to have so many beautiful, mature trees offering shade throughout the playground. Maintaining as many trees as possible and ensuring their health are part of the plan, as is managing drainage and ground cover for both the flat areas and gently rolling hills. Drawing children’s attention to the natural world through teaching gardens, interpretive signage, a weather station, and other, similar features encourages children’s curiosity and further reflects the value Lowell places on nature and sustainability.

Director of Primary School Jason Novak is no stranger to the task of planning an engaging play space for young children. In his previous position as assistant director of the Lower School at Abington Friends School, he spent two years on a committee that researched and designed an outdoor classroom for students. Drawing on this experience, Jason was eager to include voices from across the Lowell community. Others on the planning team—Head of School Debbie Gibbs, Associate Head and CFO Doug Odom, and Director of Development Wendy McGrath—were already thinking in the same vein, and the firms Lowell hired to design the playground, LSG Landscape Architecture and Designed for Fun, were enthusiastic about receiving community input.

Jason engaged teachers in discussions on safety features, equipment options, and ways that the playground could be designed to maximize student learning and growth. After a multi-week unit on accessibility and adaptation—which included a field trip to Hadley’s Park, a fully accessible playground in Montgomery County—2nd grade students reached out to Jason, Wendy, and Doug to schedule a presentation to share their observations and recommendations. One 3rd grader even submitted her own plan for an ideal playground.

In addition, Jason and Wendy developed a voting procedure that would give everyone the Primary School the opportunity to choose some of the elements of the new space. In October, eight playground features were exhibited—a climbing structure, an outdoor classroom, a water feature, a mud kitchen, a sand-play area, a music and movement area, a building area, and an open space for running and ball play. Teachers, students, and parents cast their votes. While results of the voting varied by constituency, a climbing structure and open play area for ball sports emerged as clear preferences.

Meanwhile, LSG Landscape Architecture was studying the topography of the site and how children currently play in the space. They also brought in a professional arborist to evaluate the trees. With the results of the voting in and the goals of the project in mind, they began putting their ideas on paper. Designed for Fun was busy, too, selecting equipment options that would challenge the children and ignite their imaginations.

The plan that LSG and Designed for Fun unveiled for the Board and that Doug shared with the faculty and staff in January offers many exciting possibilities for play within clearly articulated spaces. These kid-sized “rooms” invite children  to explore a range of options and are situated strategically on the site to take advantage of the natural landscape.

Those at Lowell working most closely on the project see the design as more than they initially expected and, at the same time, a just-right realization of the project’s goals and the hopes of students, teachers, and parents. Debbie was particularly delighted with the tall climbing structure proposed by Designed for Fun:


Jason appreciated the way the design responds to the children’s enthusiasm and input:


Equipment will be ordered in mid-March and the design will be finalized by early April so the school can navigate the District’s permitting process and hire a general contractor in time for a summer construction start. With so much excitement around the design phase of the project, it’s not hard to imagine the children bounding into the new play space next fall, full of energy and delight. They will know that they’re having fun; we’ll know that they’re immersed in learning, too.