Hang in there, baby.
Photo courtesy Mike Hewson
This Risky Playground Is Deceptively Terrifying
Mike Hewson has perfected the art of making spaces for dangerous-looking fun. But the risks they promise are imaginary — and they can help children’s development.
When Helen Little heard that a new “risky playground” was opening in Melbourne in November, she had to see it for herself.
A senior lecturer in early childhood education at Macquarie University in Sydney, Little trekked to to the Southbank neighborhood, not far from Melbourne’s downtown, and found a playscape littered with huge boulders and slides that seemed to perch precariously on wheeled dollies. Kids were clinging to the colorful ropes and steel ladders that spanned the jagged rocks — the perfect setting for a vast “floor is lava” game, or perhaps a major class-action injury lawsuit.