WonkyPlay: A Not-So-Square Green Playhouse

by Maggie Flickinger

What happens when 19 architect + builder teams are charged with creating green playhouses to benefit a local non-profit?  That’s just what the Colorado Green Building Guild’s Green Playhouse Design Competition – and our team, Barrett Studio architects & BW Construction –  aims to find out.

David’s design for the WonkyPlay House is simple and fun – designed with kids in mind – while bringing in a host of reclaimed and upcycled materials.  Discarded carpet tubes stand in for logs in this updated “cabin.”   Kids can go through the front door, peek up at the sky through the periscope, jump out the window (via a rope ladder!) or whiz down the slide, encouraging active play.  A starter garden patch hugs the side of the playhouse to allow these little green thumbs to grow!

Our friends Donna & Randy, of BW Construction, diligently scalvaged – scavenged + salvaged, Randy’s term – across the city of Boulder to bring David’s design sketch to life!  Generous donations of time and materials from local businesses and neighbors helped to make it all possible.  In the long run, 99.5%* of the playhouse is recycled, reused, or upcycled! *Okay, we did end up buying 2 gallons of paint.  This photo is the playhouse coming down the home stretch of construction.

Join us at the Hawthorn Community Garden’s outpost of Growing Gardens on Saturday, June 14th from 3-6 pm as our finished WonkyPlay House, and the other 18 playhouses are auctioned off!  You can bid of course, or just stop by to get some ideas for your own special Green Playhouse.  Even better, like Colorado Green Building Guild’s Green Playhouse Facebook Page for a chance to win one of the playhouses on Saturday!