How Smith Playground is like a hackerspace: Public Workshop

The young makers took to Fairmount Park’s quirky Smith Playground and built a playground of their own this summer.

It was like a “highly-public hackerspace” where young adults and children could offer ideas on what the playground should become, said Public Workshop founder Alex Gilliam. Throughout the project, twelve members of Public Workshop’s Building Hero Project led hundreds of children and volunteers in designing and building the playground.

Backed by the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, the creation of the playground was the Legacy Project for Greenbuild, the international green buildings conference that landed in Philly earlier this week, and facilitated by Public Workshop, the Department of Making + Doing partner that engages youth through design.

Below, watch a video by PBS for EduTopia about the project.