Psagot, Israel
Balloons is a playground tower system designed by Yaniv Ziegler of Psagot Playground that aspires to take all types of children on imaginative journeys.
Hot air balloons have an amazing combination of color, shape, and imagination, so they are ideal candidates for play systems that stimulate children’s imagination.
The play system Balloons is designed to create a new, different, and empowering experience for all people.
Balloons has recently been awarded a 2022 Good Design Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
This integrated play system is designed to create experiences as a multi-sensory, egalitarian experience of sound, color, challenge, and imagination.
The challenge was to integrate the widest possible range of people to give every child the feeling of being a part, so that no one would feel alienated, and to create a new and improved user experience without harming the imagination experience.
The project arose from the desire to improve and make playground equipment genuinely accessible so that disabled children, especially those in wheelchairs, could participate with their friends and peers.
Balloons playground includes an upgrade of the regular playground tower, creating a shared experience for disabled populations, regardless of children’s abilities.
The base of the play system includes wheelchair-accessible bridges.
Through these bridges, a wheelchair-bound person can access a higher floor, engage with more playground elements, and play with others.
Beyond that, the play system offers a variety of experiential activities for every user of every age and ability.
There are challenging rope nets and high slides for older children, sensory game panels, and low slides for younger children.
Everyone will experience colorful fun, harmonic sounds from musical panels, and balloons that stimulate the imagination.
Project: Balloons
Designers: Psagot Playground
Lead Designer: Yaniv Ziegler
Manufacturer: Psagot Playground
