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A cutting-edge outdoor classroom for the Abington Friends School
For the Headwaters Discovery Playground, Viridian Landscape Studio™ transformed a traditional play yard into a nature-based classroom and free-play landscape—purpose-built for Abington Friends School students and the AFS Outside program. The result: a campus space where science, math, art, and music can move outdoors, and where learning feels like play (because it is).
Built for Curiosity (and Educational Mess-making).
At the headwaters of the AFS watershed, pumps, sluices, sand, rainwater, rocks, and plants invite real experimentation. Students explore hydrology and water conservation hands-on—building intuition through tinkering, testing, and getting their hands dirty in the best possible way. Nearby, a swing, pulley, and lever put physics in motion, while a cleverly integrated service area keeps infrastructure out of sight and out of the way.
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Space to Move, Space to Rest
Open, grassy areas support large-group games—tag, basketball, gaga, even sledding—while also creating room for kids to practice new social roles through play. In more adventurous areas, woven carefully between existing trees, kids can take a goat path, crawl up a boulder, and scramble up the climb. When it’s time to come back down to earth, quieter pockets beneath new trees and plantings offer shade, calm, and a change of pace.
Designed with the community, connected to the curriculum
Viridian partnered with student and parent focus groups and a steering committee of parents, faculty, and alumni to shape a playground that reflects how the school teaches and how kids actually use space. Coordinated with Abington Friends School’s broader outdoor learning initiative, AFS Outside, this landscape is designed to become as central to the curriculum as indoor classrooms and labs.
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