M a u iN e w sFebruary 8, 2004

Children Have Hand in Playground Design

By Claudine San Nicolas, Staff Writer

WAILUKU - Maui's children have longtime playground designer Bob Leathers all excited about the projects he's creating for them. In 34 years of experience as a playground architect, Leathers has met thousands of children across the country and built hundreds of structures for them.

The founder of Leathers and Associates said he was particularly impressed by 3rd and 5th graders at Haleakala Waldorf School in Kula.

"They had ideas and directions that just blew me away," Leathers said in an interview Friday.

The children talked about incorporating the wind and rain often felt in Haiku into the playground. They threw in ideas for structures with an octopus model, a spider, and perhaps, even a maze.

Leathers said he had talked with other children about octopuses and spiders, but the Maui children were particularly impressive because of their ideas to involve problem-solving activities and educational lessons along the way.

The same Maui children also talked about the playground having "zones," one with a jungle theme and another futuristic with mirrors and murals of what's to come next.

"The idea of zoning a playground I thought was great," he said.

Leathers said the children's ideas are "hard but realistic," and he's intent on incorporating their ideas into his first playground for Maui, in Haiku. The $200,000 project is called the Kalakupua Playground, named in a contest for something that is magical and mysterious. It'll be built in "barn-raising" style on May 11-16 at the 4th Marine Division Park.

Leathers and Associates has also been tapped to design and build a $1 million Community Playground planned for Keopuolani Park, and community-led playgrounds in in Hana and Kihei.

The four projects are organized by different community groups, but each entity is supporting the other and all have turned to Leathers for help.

Leathers' work with playgrounds began in 1976 when he and parents at his children's school in Ithaca, N.Y., decided to build their children a playground with a budget of $900.

A year later, friends asked Leathers to participate in another volunteer-built project. By 1979, Leathers was involved in five to six playgrounds a year, but by this time he was having to charge for his services - initially at a rate of $7 an hour.

"It was still a hobby," Leathers recalled.

But then his firm took off, building more playgrounds, and then science centers, zoos, community centers and in at least one case, handicapped access in a bank.

All in all, Leathers and Associates is responsible for approximately 1,800 playgrounds built in every one of the 50 states.

The architectural firm based in Ithaca, N.Y., and now operated by Leathers' son, Marc, has also built playgrounds in Israel, New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

Leathers himself works in a small office in San Diego, where he currently resides with his wife, landscape architect Cheryl Nickel.

Leathers stands behind his product and calls it "second to none" in regard to safety and longevity.

"It's absolutely the best in the world," he said.

The architectural firm based in Ithaca, N.Y., and now operated by Leathers' son, Marc, has also built playgrounds in Israel, New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

Leathers is a member of a national subcommittee that sets standards for American playgrounds.

These days Leathers looks for projects in places he wants to visit and with people whom he's interested in meeting.

"Any project I do is more experimental," he said.

Leathers said he's charged by the concept of community-built playgrounds that involve volunteers raising both money and labor to get the projects completed.

Leathers is a member of a national subcommittee that sets standards for American playgrounds.

"The excitement of the community, making a difference, that gets me going," Leathers said.

Kalakupua Playground organizers River Sussman and Karen Cooper said every time Leathers visits, their project gets a boost.

"He's like the adrenaline pump," Cooper said about Leathers.

Sussman said Leathers' visits lead to more ideas about the playground design and its elements. She's also always reassured by his presence and his participation.

"It's always another layer of confidence when he comes here," Sussman said.

Leathers said he plans to submit a drawn design in about a month, and then he'll return again before the Kalakupua Playground gets built to run ideas through with children.

Leathers will also be on hand during the construction of the playground.

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