Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Among fountains, gardens, courtyards and civic spaces, Isamu Noguchi also designed public playgrounds, sometimes called playscapes. He also designed playground modules to include in public spaces. For example, Noguchi designed playground modules, using tetrahedrons. Pyramid shapes, which he hollowed out, and truncated at the four apexes, so that the modules could be stacked and combined to form play structures that he called labyrinths.
Noguchi’s tetrahedron playground module is a patented invention. The US utility patent, US3666266, titled Playground Module, was awarded on May 30th, 1972, to Isamu Noguchi.
In comparison to traditional playground structures, modeled on military boot camp equipment, the patent recites an invention striving to offer a playscape. In other words, a playground design that is architecturally interesting, aesthetically pleasing, and multifunctional. Based on the observation that children naturally liked to climb up to widen the horizon of what they can see, and that they also liked to burrow, exploring hidden places and mazes, Noguchi’s playground modules offer structures with circular ports. Ports that may be used both as steps for climbing up from one module to another, and as entrances for crawling in, from one module into another. The selected tetrahedron shape, truncated and hollowed out, then forms an octahedron, with four smaller triangular planes and four hexagonal surfaces, lending themselves perfectly to stacking into tiers, and/or for side by side interconnection to form tunnels.
The patent Figure 1 depicts a perspective view of one playground module, comprising one equilateral truncated tetrahedron. Thus, the four large surfaces 10, 11, 12 and 13 are hexagonal, whereas the four smaller surfaces 14, 15, 16, and 17 (hidden), are triangular. Additionally, the larger surfaces 10, 11, 12 and 13 are each respectively parallel to the smaller surfaces 14, 15, 16 and 17 (hidden). And all the edges of the structure are chamfered to avoid sharp edges.
A central cavity C is further hollowed out spherically so that the interior surface is completely edge-free. Access to the central spherical cavity C is enabled through a port 10C on the large surface 10. Likewise access to the central spherical cavity C is enabled through the ports 11C, 12C and 13C, respectively on the remaining four large surfaces 11, 12 and 13.
The modules can then be assembled with recessed bolts into various play structures, using two or more modules, as shown below for the red, two-tier play structure.
The abstract of the invention appears below.
A structural module which lends itself to the construction of playground edifices for climbing and crawling. The module is in the form of a tetrahedron whose four corners are truncated to define four triangular minor faces that are disposed in parallel relation to four major hexagonal faces, the module having a spherical central cavity. The radius of the sphere is greater than the distance between the geometrical center of the module and any major face thereof, circular ports in the major faces of the module being formed by the intersection of the spherical cavity and the major faces. A group of such modules may be interfitted in various ways, side by side as well as one above the other, to create an edifice in which one major face of each module abuts a major face of an adjacent module and in which the ports of the abutting faces are in registration, thereby interconnecting the cavities of the modules to produce a labyrinth. [Abstract US3666266]
References
Isamu Noguchi
www.Noguchi.org
Noguchi playscapes
https://www.grimshaw.foundation/stories/noguchi-s-playscapes
Isamu Noguchi
www.Noguchi.org
Noguchi playscapes
https://www.grimshaw.foundation/stories/noguchi-s-playscapes
