Friend’s Playground

San Francisco Zoo

The playground provides age-based physical activity in the context of four distinct environments:

Animal Kingdom Learning Plaza is a central gathering space inhabited by a plethora of recognizable vertebrate and invertebrate animal sculpture forms. These climbable creatures include birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, rodents, crustaceans, spiders and primates organized on islands of animal groups that represent a cladistics mode of classification.

Tropical Banyan Exploration is the setting for an irresistible adventure for school aged children. The structure of low branches, air roots and buttress roots provide an invitation to climb, crawl, slide and swing. Swings, pull up rings, climbing ropes, zip slider, monkey bars and hang bridges appear suspended from the branches. The Banyan Tree provides many unexpected opportunities to peek, touch, and to make and hear sounds.

Polar Adventure features a series of large, floating sculptural Iceberg shapes that are the takeoff point for a number of climbing challenges, multiple ice slides, crawl through ice tunnels and ice tower swings.

Riverside Play provides for crawling, sliding, climbing, standing-up, walking, sand play, playing hide and seek and swinging. All in a colorful, cozy, safe, soft, protected enclosure. Plenty of seating is available for care-givers to watch, nurse or cuddle and change their little ones. Most of the activities have a tactile component compelling them to stretch, push, pull, crawl, stand up, roll, grip and grasp.

Concept and Design Development in collaboration with Scientific Art Studio