At FDR Park’s new playground, designers say being a little scared is kind of the point

On opening day of the Anna C. Verna Playground in FDR park in October, Meghan Talarowski watched a mom shoot out of the bottom of a tunnel slide.

“That’s far too dangerous for children!” the woman declared.

Talarowski was amused. One, an adult body’s mass makes them slide far faster than a kid. More importantly, the scary factor of the slide is kind of the point.

Talarowski is founder and executive director of Studio Ludo, a Philadelphia nonprofit that works to “build better play through research and advocacy.” The firm partnered with design group WRT to design the playground, part of the multiphase FDR Park Plan overseen by the Fairmount Park Conservancy and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation.

The playground is unconventional. There are log scrambles and a mega oval-shaped swing set, so swingers face each other — the first of its kind in North America. It has seven slides ranging from four feet to 30 feet tall. Three of the slides are enclosed in metal structures meant to look like Victorian bird cages, a nod to FDR Park’s large bird population, webbed with rope to climb to the top.

At first look, the height of towers and the design of the cages might be unnerving. One parent commented on an Instagram story that the cages were “terrifying.”

On a Saturday afternoon in December, dozens of children scaled the towers, shrieks and laughter filling the air. David Benito, 10, of South Philadelphia, played with his siblings, red-faced and smiling.

“It’s scary,” he said. “This one is so tall!”

I asked his mom, Ana Benito, if she had to coax her children to try the biggest tower.

“No, not at all,” she said.

Parents are often more wary than kids of risky play spaces, says Talarowski.

“We all have that thing as parents that makes us make that sound,” she said, drawing in a sharp breath and wincing, to demonstrate.

That’s why the towers at Anna C. Verna are designed to offer what Talarowski calls graduated risk-taking — “microdosing” risk.

“If it’s a little bit too scary, it’s really easy for you to back down,” she said.

The smallest tower, at 10 feet, has a larger climbing space so caregivers can join. A middle-sized slide’s tower consists of a series of platforms to reach the slide, making it a bit less comfortable for adults — which is intentional.

“We wanted to provide a tower for just kids … if they didn’t want their grownups with them,” said Talarowski.

The tallest tower is the most physically challenging, with access through the tower or a rope ladder.

“The ladder feels a little destabilizing, and that’s on purpose,” Talarowski said. “If you’re going to go up to that 30-foot tower, we want to make sure you’re physically capable.”

The design is backed by data, like the six categories of risky play defined by play expert Ellen Sandseter, which include, “Great Heights” (check), “Rapid Speeds” (check), and “Disappearing or Getting Lost” (likely check).

“We don’t have fire, though,” said Talarowski, of the “Dangerous Tools” and “Dangerous Elements” categories.

Playground design as a whole has been leaning toward introducing beneficial risk in recent years, though Americans have been wary. Proponents of risk say being able to assess physical risk on their own actually prevents injuries and builds emotional resilience in kids.

Allison Schapker, chief operations and projects officer for the Fairmount Park Conservancy, said this playground serves as a blueprint for potential future projects.

“It’s a first for the city,” Schapker said. “We wanted to push and test what a playground would look like in Philadelphia.”

Since FDR Park, which serves about 4 million Philadelphians per year, is a space for all ages, the playground team wanted it to be a space just about anyone could enjoy. The mega swing especially welcomes kids and grownups alike.

“I see adults as much as kids on these swings, especially the basket swings,” Schapker said.

When I visited, Nadia Ouagugu accompanied her son, 8, up one of the towers and down the slide.

“Yeah, I was scared,” she said, laughing. “I looked down and said, I don’t have a choice, I have to continue. That’s it. No choice.”

Across the playground, Illyana Roe, 7, of West Philadelphia, explored the tallest log scramble set, resting at the top.

“I love the big slide,” she said. “It’s so fun. It makes you go extremely fast — like Sonic!”