Playgrounds needn’t all look alike; they can be works of art. This isn’t a new idea either; Pierre Szekely made a few play sculptures in France in the 1950s and 60s that I wouldn’t mind having in my neighborhood.

Paige Johnson at Playscapes has collected Szekely’s playground sculptures chronologically:

It is particularly interesting to observe how he moves back and forth between round biomorphic forms and sharp, angular geometries…ending up with the monumental Lady of the Lake, the first permanent climbing wall in France, opened in 1975 but now quarantined as ‘unsafe’. 

Their contours invite creative play where an overhang is a crevice in Mars or peep holes shrink players into a huge cheese.