The Sara Jackman Playground

The Laboratory School at the University of Toronto’s Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study (JICS) is an award-winning preschool to Grade 6 school affiliated with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). The university chose PLANT to redesign its outdoor play area – now officially renamed The Sara Jackman Playground – to improve its accessibility and support JICS‘ pedagogical emphasis on creative play that encourages students’ mental and physical development, while enhancing their sense of connection to the natural world.

Previously, the play area was a flat asphalt surface enclosing a few trees. Now, this compact urban site that could not expand outward is an engaging, multi-level play environment. In between a sand-and-water-play zone and a boomerang-shaped climbing structure, a figure-8 tricycle track with a tree root-protecting wooden bridge loops around two main gathering areas. In one, a pavilion’s translucent, leaf-shaped canopy ensures that story time can take place outside even on wet days. The other is a wood mound that becomes a winter sliding slope. The entire play area invites kids to test and expand their physical abilities and serves as a flexible stage set for role-playing. A hard-surface play area provides space for shooting baskets and other vigorous sports activities.

Improvised play with ‘props’ such as tarps, cable spools, and pool noodles is an important part of JICS' pedagogy. Our team has designed two colourfully shingled, organically shaped sheds – dubbed “The Potato” and “The Onion” – for storing this equipment. Climbing-wall grips embedded in The Potato enable this utility structure to do double duty as a loft-like play area.

The design brief for this project called for an accessibility ramp. Our team saw this inclusive infrastructural addition as an opportunity to introduce even more multi-level play possibilities. Technically, what we designed is not a ramp at all, but rather a long, sloped sidewalk. Its incline of just under 5% is so gentle that many mandated ramp requirements, such as a width narrow enough for a wheelchair user to grasp handrails on either side, did not apply. We conceived the sloped sidewalk as an engaging, site-traversing journey. Varying in width, it hugs the heritage building’s large, crescent-shaped bay window as it rises toward the new accessible entrance.

The University of Toronto’s Design Review Committee praised our design for achieving exemplary accessibility while introducing an amazing range of interactive play opportunities for children of varying ages. The narrow pocket of space between the new sloped sidewalk and the rear wall of the school is a ‘secret sensory garden’ – a quiet nook containing plants of different shapes, colours, textures, and fragrances. Along the outer edge are child-sized niches and stepped log segments that invite kids to climb through the splayed pickets and onto the infrastructure.

PLANT’s scope also includes a new entry, washroom renovations, and exterior wall alterations that support accessibility and programming changes while preserving the JICS building’s heritage character.