by Damien Raffa
In the Fall of 2021 the Presidio’s new Tunnel Tops park will open, featuring extraordinary new experiential features that will substantially add to the now actively enlarging “ecosystem” of nature connection in the city. For the second summer, the Presidio Trust prototyped experiences envisioned for the outdoor 2-acre nature play Outpost and the indoor multi-sensory investigative Field Station.
More than 2,500 children, youth and grown-ups have participated in our staffed programs this summer, and countless others enjoyed the nature play on other days of the week. This Nature Exploration Area pop-up will remain for public enjoyment through the end of October. Go check it out on the Presidio’s Main Post (map search “34 Graham Street“) and play “grass is lava” on the logs and stumps, barefoot even!
To create the pop-up installation, we worked with renowned natural playground expert, Adam Bienenstock, and 35 participants representing early childhood educators, project managers, planners, architects, teachers, foresters and gardeners as part of an SF Children & Nature design-build workshop. The Presidio Trust’s forestry crew crafted the “bones” of the Nature Exploration Area with logs from park forest management projects. See video
