Women's Center - Houston

A courtyard play space built into a residential facility in Houston: bright climbing posts, a slide and play arches set into turf, with curved concrete walks and planted borders running through it. It is an enclosed, overlooked courtyard that gets used by a lot of children in a small footprint.

Playground turf is a safety surface first and a lawn second. It is laid over a shock-absorbing pad in the fall zones around equipment, on a base graded to drain so the courtyard is usable after a storm rather than closed for a day. Every edge is anchored into the concrete walk line so nothing can be picked up at a corner.