Always Dream Play Area

This is where all children can play and dream. Part of Fremont’s Central Park, this play area provides fun, engaging and challenging activities for a child’s physical, mental and social development. It reflects the distant hills with a series of colorful mounds rising out of the field of turf, encircling a plaza with its stepped seating, picnic tables, huge cement balls for climbing, shade umbrellas and a drum installation. Children can run over the mounds, roll down them, jump off them or hang out on them. Seat wall transfers at the mounds allow a person in a wheelchair to transfer onto them. And a slide in the central mound is accessible through transfer steps. The mounds in the preschool area are shallower, with small-scale elements like play houses.

Toddler swings are separate from the school-age swings that accommodate 3-4 children at a time. The swings allow children with limited upper body strength to lie across them. Spinner bowls in the pre-school area rotate on 3 axes, creating a disorienting but fun experience. The merry-go-round climber in the school-age area has a solid deck that allows for transfer from a wheel chair and a seating area that allows children with limited physical ability to experience spinning.

With all that movement, there is also a place for children to be quietly—or not so quietly—creative. The sand and water play area is a setting for dramatic play, practicing castle building and digging for treasure. Transfer steps provide access to the sand, and the water source is raised so a child in a wheelchair can pull right up to it. Finally, a grove of trees provides for free play in a forest setting, helping children connect with natural elements.

We developed conceptual designs, refined the concept through design development, prepared construction documents and performed construction observation.