Getting Past the Grown-Ups

Bienenstock's Guiding Principles

Over the past three decades, Bienenstock has developed a set of ten principles that are reflected in every one of our natural park and playground projects:

In our parks and playgrounds:

1. You will hear laughter.
2. Play is unstructured, self-directed, and creative, not prescriptive.
3. Play is built on a backbone of real, raw, nature.
4. Bugs, birds, dirt, hills, rocks, water, and trees are the good stuff.
5. Bumps, bruises and scrapes are celebrated.
6. There are four seasons, we play in all of them.
7. We must all be compelled to move.
8. We will engage all of our senses.
9. We must create obstacles, increase risk, and decrease hazards.
10. Size matters; we all deserve to feel small next to an ancient tree or huge next to a challenge.

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