Proposal for the Friends of Tubman board
The play spaces that people travel to see are built from earth, wood, stone, trees, and things children can move. Catalog structures and poured rubber are the costliest parts of a conventional playground. A landscape approach can shrink both. Research, 80+ photos from around the world, and what it could mean at Tubman.
It is a school playground first. It is also meant to be a neighborhood park. Every idea below is checked against that.
These are working assumptions from the project notes. Site dimensions, budget details, and after-hours access are still to be confirmed.
Playground safety in the U.S. follows the CPSC handbook and ASTM standards, and every element here would be specified and inspected against them by the design team. Children in the studies on adventurous play took small, chosen risks, and the reviews link that to more activity and better social health, with the caveat that much of the evidence is low quality. Nothing on this site is a compliance claim.
The goal is about $1 million, the same as the current effort. Poured rubber costs roughly 5 to 10 times more per square foot than wood fiber in vendor price lists, and small nature-play areas have been built for $15,000 to $60,000 in materials. No study shows a whole yard costs less than a conventional one, so the honest claim is more play per dollar. The Budget section shows the sources and what is still unpriced.
Every chapter lists its upkeep. Logs and ropes get scheduled inspection. Trees and planting need watering for the first years. A loose-parts yard needs a person. The plan puts each of those in the open so the board can pick what it can sustain, and starts with the parts that need the least.
Adventure playgrounds, nature playgrounds, and swing bays in the photos have been operating for years in cities across the world, and the photos show them in use. The design step includes asking Tubman students what they want, since they are the people who know what recess is like now.
It has to be checked with CPS. The layout separates a fenced 2 to 5 area from the 5 to 12 yard, keeps sightlines for recess staff, and designs seating, water, gates, and lighting for after-hours use. Whether the site opens to neighbors, and on what hours, is a decision for the school.
That is why the plan is in phases. Each phase stands on its own. The first phase is the anchor and the shade. Later phases add variety and things that need staff. Nothing in phase 1 depends on phase 3.
No study identifies one best playground. The evidence points toward offering several kinds of play, and its strength varies. Each finding below names how strong it is.
A 2024 review of 51 studies found that fixed equipment, natural features, loose parts, markings and open space each helped in some studies, but none was consistently best. Since no one feature can be relied on, the safer choice is to offer several kinds of play.
Evidence: Moderate, mixed studies. Pereira et al., 2024
Experimental schoolyard greening studies mostly report gains in activity or social outcomes.
Evidence: Encouraging. Bikomeye et al., 2021
Reviews of adventurous and risky outdoor play find mostly positive links with activity and social health.
Evidence: Low quality, consistent direction. Brussoni et al., 2015
Observed cooperative play is encouraging. Controlled studies rarely show effects on cognition or emotion.
Evidence: Weak. Gibson et al., 2017
Accessible routes to ground-level play and at least half of elevated components are required. Inclusive-play guidance adds quiet spaces, companion space, and co-design.
Evidence: Regulation and practice guidance. U.S. Access Board
Trees cool the air and surfaces. Playground surfaces and metal equipment can burn on sunny days. Shade needs to reach the play area.
Evidence: Strong on heat, less on play outcomes. EPA
A planted mound with a broad route to the top, a lookout, a slide, and a few different ways up. The most exciting place on the site is also the place everyone can get to.
Federal accessibility rules require accessible routes to ground-level play and to at least half of elevated components. Those are minimums. The design question is whether children using wheels, walkers, or their legs can arrive at the same lookout and be there together. The CPSC handbook also recommends choices of challenge that children can see and judge for themselves.
Low mounds, logs, boulders, planting, and rope crossings make many routes through the same space. Children choose how hard to make the route, and friends of different abilities can move side by side.
Reviews of greened schoolyards and of adventurous outdoor play report more physical activity and better social outcomes in many studies. Only a handful of the experimental studies are strong, and results vary between schools, so this supports a direction and does not guarantee an outcome.
Swinging, spinning, balancing, bouncing, and rolling are separate experiences. A bay with a belt swing, a nest swing, a supported seat, and a group spinner gives different children something they like, and the group pieces make natural meeting points.
A 2024 review of 51 studies found that fixed equipment, natural features, loose parts, markings, and space have all been tested, and no single category came out as best. Because no one feature can be relied on, a mix of play types is the safer choice. Federal accessibility rules require at least one of each type of ground-level play component to be on an accessible route.
Crates, planks, tubes, fabric, blocks, sand, and water let children invent their own games and change the space. Adventure playgrounds around the world run on this idea, and a school can run a small version.
The evidence is promising and unsettled. A 2017 systematic review found too few high-quality studies to conclude that loose parts change cognitive, social, or emotional outcomes, though observed cooperative play was encouraging. A small 2025 experiment with 60 preschoolers found more STEM behavior with loose parts than with fixed toys, but it was indoors and short.
Small nooks, a tactile planting bed, a low platform, a table, and seating that faces the action give children a way to join in that does not depend on speed or nerve. The same places serve caregivers at pickup and neighbors on weekends.
Inclusive-play guidance separates inclusion from physical access. It calls for quiet sensory areas, space for companions who use mobility devices, and design with disabled children and their families. UNICEF's practice guide stresses participatory design and playgrounds as places where children with and without disabilities meet.
Shade goes where children play and wait. Sails give shade in the first summer and trees give it for the next fifty years. Rain gardens, a hand pump, or a shallow channel put water to work as part of the design.
EPA describes how trees and vegetation cool surfaces and air through shade and evapotranspiration. CPSC warns that plastic, metal, and rubber surfacing can burn skin on sunny days, even in mild weather, and recommends shading equipment. CDC lists shade structures and trees among schoolyard heat strategies.
The parks and schoolyards below put several of these ideas on one site. Look at how the zones sit next to each other, where the paths run, and how much of the ground is planted.
Guidance from CPSC recommends dispersing popular uses, separating conflicting activities, and keeping open fields, sand, quiet areas, and equipment in distinct sections that adults can still see. A 2024 review of 51 studies found no single feature that was consistently best, so offering several kinds of play is the safer choice.
Chicago has excellent large parks. What a school-scale site could add is a combination of things that is uncommon at a single neighborhood school. This list is a hypothesis to check against a survey of local playgrounds.
Maggie Daley Park and other big Chicago sites show what landforms can do. A landmark sized for a school block, with a broad route to the top, is a different thing.
Seating, water, tables, lighting, and gates designed for evenings and weekends from the start.
Adventure and nature playgrounds in Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia group several swing types together. Few Chicago schoolyards do.
Adventure playgrounds in Berkeley, Prague, and Munich run on planks, tools, and staff. A small version would be an unusual thing at a CPS school.
Paving, seats, and markings drawn by Tubman students and community historians, along with the music theme the school already has.
The Friends of Tubman goal is about $1 million, so this is a plan for roughly $1 million. The question is how far $1 million goes. The evidence below shows where a landscape approach can save money, where it cannot, and what still has to be priced.
Vendor price lists put poured-in-place rubber at about $16 to $25 per square foot installed. Engineered wood fiber runs about $1.50 to $3.00. On 10,000 square feet, that gap is on the order of $100,000 or more, and it can be reallocated to shade, trees, and terrain.
Reliability: vendor figures, undated, and other guides give wider ranges. Wood fiber needs top-ups, and accessible routes still need firm surfacing. Robertson Surfaces
Boulder and San Francisco built nature-based play areas for roughly $14,000 to $60,000 in materials, using logs and boulders donated by the city and in-house crews.
Reliability: materials only, small areas, and free labor. Design, drainage, permitting, and accessible routes are extra. Children & Nature Network
Playworks says a basic recess equipment kit costs no more than $300. Its coaching and staffing services run about $18,000 to $65,000 per school per year. A pilot run by existing recess staff could cost much less.
Reliability: nonprofit vendor, undated. Whether existing staff can run it is unverified. Playworks FAQ
The Chicago Park District lists $250,000 on average for rubber resurfacing with minor equipment. Space to Grow yards run about $1.5 million each, but that includes stormwater engineering, turf fields, and tracks. Trust for Public Land's Atlanta schoolyards averaged about $200,000 in 2022 with a lighter scope.
Reliability: municipal and trade-press figures. Scopes differ from Tubman's. Chicago Park District
Nothing found so far shows that a nature-based yard costs less than a conventional one of equal scope. The direct comparisons come from vendors, and a Maine school spent $350,000 on a nature-based yard.
What the evidence does support is better play per dollar. Shifting money from rubber and catalog structures to terrain, shade, trees, seating, and loose parts changes what $1 million buys.
The next step is to price the scheme by area, with three local bids and a landscape architect's estimate, before the board votes on anything.
A starter kit costs hundreds of dollars in materials. Needs storage and a trained adult on the yard. Run it as a semester pilot.
Openlands TreePlanters gives free young trees to school property, 10 to 40 per grant. Confirm current deadlines. Young trees give little shade for years, so pair them with sails.
Ask city forestry and the Park District for donated logs and boulders. Requires inspection and a safety review of fall zones.
Keep firm, accessible surfacing for routes and destinations, and use cheaper surfaces elsewhere. Budget top-ups.
Reimburses stormwater construction such as rain gardens and permeable surfaces. School districts are eligible, so CPS would be the applicant. Pre-application is due December 15, 2026. It requires a 20 to 30 year maintenance plan. MWRD
CPS, the city, and MWRD pay for schoolyard redesigns that stay open to the community. Schools are selected by the partners, and no open application was found. Ask whether Tubman can be nominated. Healthy Schools Campaign
Free young trees for public land, including school property. Openlands
Both fund community schoolyards and playspaces. Chicago details and amounts are unconfirmed. TPL and KABOOM!
Still unverified: the CPS approval process for a Friends-funded project on CPS property, how CPS's insurer treats loose parts, and site-level budgets for Berkeley Adventure Playground and The Yard. Full sources are in the project's cost evidence notes.
Two rooms with different jobs. The main yard is for independent play at ages 5 to 12. The 2 to 5 area is small, separate, and gentler.
Landmark mound with lookout and slide, the main accessible loop, drainage, shade sails over the most-used areas, and seating. Plant trees early so they have time to grow.
Swing and spin bay, terrain and balance routes, the 2–5 area, and the quiet nooks.
Loose-parts yard and shed, water play, and student-made art, once staffing is confirmed and the earlier phases are running.