Innovative strategy at Smale Riverfront Park’s Destination Playscapes in Cincinnati

“Where Design Meets Play“

Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Author: Kate Tooke, ASLA, PLA, Associate Principal at Sasaki

published in sb 4/2019

As a part of the larger masterplan to reimagine its riverfront, the city of Cincinnati played host to an innovative and nuanced park project. The resulting design activated a wealth of multidisciplinary research and theory to create an engaging and challenging play space for children and families alike. Sasaki Associate Principal Kate Tooke explains the design concept for the park which invites curious visitors of all ages to play.

As modern cities think about activating urban spaces, the form and function of public parks have great room for evolution. In the era of Olmsted, parks served largely a scenic purpose: providing pastoral views along sweeping, tree-lined routes. These turn-of-the-century parks were an idealized back yard for busy urban residents in need of an escape from the congestion and pollution of city life. Modern parks must balance these Olmsted-ian ideals of nature and passive recreation with the diverse and intensive programmatic needs of local residents that histori­cally have been relegated to the front yards and front stoops. Our parks and plazas must now be our social gathering places as much as our quiet refuges. Now more than ever, as cities densify and the pressures of our digital world compound, our city parks must serve simultaneously as our front and our back yards – places where we experience serenity and pastoral beauty alongside community and programmed activity.