Fort Greble

Video features the Landscape Structures playground at Fort Greble in Washington D.C.

[video: fades in to a view of the Fort Greble playground sign. The sign simply reads Fort Greble. Scene switches to a slowly zooming out view of the main play tower of the playground. The structure is to represent the old Civil War fort lookout. Camera switches to a small hill with three rush slides lined up side by side along the hill. Camera switches to the other side of the hill where a handful of rock steppers line the side of the hill. Camera switches to beyond the rock steppers where there is a large horizontal rope climbing cargo net following the slant of the hill.]

[video: ground view looking up at the playground Fort playground tower. Fade to black. Fade in to a view point on top of the small hill where the three rush slides are located. The fort tower can be seen in the background. Children yell and scream as they run and play on the hillside and the slides. Camera view is looking up the hill as it slowly pans. A wood plank wiggle ladder stretches up the hill side. A young girl balances while standing on the hill side cargo net. A young boy sits on the side of the hill between the wood plank wiggle ladder and the hill side cargo net climber.]

[video: scene change to view across the park looking at fort playground tower. Camera close-up of the exit of the large tube slide off of the fort playground tower. A young boy slides down and exits the slide. Another young boy jogs away from the exit of the slide. Scene change to the side of the hill where the hillside cargo net climber is located. Two girls sit at the top of the hill on the cargo net frame system while another girl at the bottom of the hill begins to climb onto the net. Camera zooms in to several children sitting and climbing over the cargo net.]

[video: A group of children hang from their arms while spinning on the flywheel playground spinner. Camera zooms in on the children’s hands as they hand on to the spinning flywheel. The camera pans up from the ground to a young girl quickly spinning on a saddle seat spinner. Brent Sisco a Landscape Architect speaks to the camera. Text appears in the lower left part of the scene. Text reads Brent Sisco, Landscape Architect, ASLA, CPSI, DC Department of Parks and Recreation.]

Brent: I guess my role in this hill project is that we’ve gone out to the community.

Brent voiceover: You know tons of community meetings to get the feedback from what the community would like to see in our playgrounds and then we take that and convert it into something they can see physically.

[video: camera pans across two of the rush slides as children run up the hill and slide down. Scene changes to the top of the hill where the entrance to one of the hill slides is located. Children run up the hill and to the entrance of the slide. A child wears a point of view camera as they spin on the flywheel spinner. The view shows the inside of the flywheel while a group of children spin. Camera switches to a side view of two children being pushed on a swing set. Camera switches to a front view of the two children swinging. A young girl stands in front just to the left of the camera as she watches the children swing.]

[video: Karen Williams speaks to the camera. Text on bottom left of the screen reads, Karen Williams, Director, Big Mama’s Children Center.]

Karen: I think this playground is awesome.

[video: A woman off camera laughs.]

Karen: Ok, the kids love it, there so much open area they can run around.

[video: camera view is up the hill viewing the fort playground tower and the cloudy sky. The sun sits to the left of the tower in the sky. Children rush up the hill to the tower.

Brent voiceover: The cool thing about DC is there are so many different neighborhoods and you know, DC is a very distinct place and that you can go up block to block and there’s ownership.

[video: close-up of three girls stepping across the rock steppers on the side of the hill. Camera pulls back for a full view of the girls walking across rock steppers. Camera switches to a view of the wood plank wiggle ladder. A girl makes her way down the ladder as two boys wait their turn at the top of the hill. Camera zooms in to a boy’s foot as he steps off the main support step to the wood plank wiggle ladder. A boy and girl scoot down the hillside cargo net. Children climb and crawl all over the hillside cargo net as the camera views from below.

[video: camera switches to Brent speaking to the camera briefly.]

Brent: you know each community has its own identity.

Brent voiceover: Here at Fort Greble this used to be a Union Civil War sort of Fort look out and so we wanted to increase that or put that into the concept as you can see LSI has done a wonderful job.

[video: camera switches to a top down view of the steps up to the tower deck. Children slowly climb the stairs up to the tower. Camera view looking up, a young boy climbs up a vertical ladder. A young girl with braided hair rushes over to the periscope panel and looks through the eye wholes. Camera switches to a child wearing a point of view camera as he runs over to a telescope on the tower deck. A view through the bubble panel on the tower shows adults and children gathering at the bottom of the fort tower stairs. Camera switches to a top down view of a young girl as she steps down a vertical ladder down through the center of the playground tower. Camera back to Brent speaking to the camera.]

Brent: With translating that history into that something that’s considerable playable lives.

Brent voiceover: The look of stuff is really apparent the kids you know when they, when they come here, and they see it they automatically want to run to play on it.

[video: camera view from the top of the hill shooting down as a group of children climb all around on the hillside cargo net climber. Camera zooms in on a boy as he climbers up the cargo net. Camera view switches to a close-up of a young girl climbing up the cargo net. Camera view switches to a close-up of the cargo net ropes and metal hook connectors as children climb on the cargo net making the ropes giggle and shake. Camera switches to the top of the hill where the three rush slides are located. Children play all around on the slides and the hillside. Camera back to Brent speaking to the camera.]

Brent: And I think that’s just a reflection of how beautiful it actually is.

[video: a top down view of the large tubed slide off the fort playground tower. A woman off camera speaks.]

Woman off camera: Have you been down the big slide?

[video: camera switches to Karen speaking to the camera.]

Karen: No, I didn’t, I went down a little one. But I’m not going to try the big one.

[woman off camera laughs.]

Karen: OK, especially not today, my back is killing me. So maybe another time ok.

[woman off camera laughs again.]

[video: two boys climb up a summit climber together. Camera switches to the top of the fort playground tower looking down the large tube slide. Several boys are lined up to go down the slide. One boy goes down the slide and screams loudly. The second boy fallows him down the slide. Camera switches to children rolling down the side of the hill next to the wood plank wiggle ladder. A group of children scream and yell as they roll down the hill towards the camera. A young boy in the group of children that just rolled down the hill speaks to the camera.

Boy: This playground is just so fun, I could just buy this for myself.

[video: an overhead view as children run underneath the camera in slow motion. Camera switches to a young boy at the top of the fort playground tower. He looks up and smiles at the camera. He begins to jump up and down. A top down view as the camera fallows a young boy down the rush slide. An overhead slowly zooming in view of a boy running up to the flywheel. He jumps up to grab the handle, so he can spin. Camera switches to a point of view camera as a child looks out over the top of the large tower slide. The child sets themselves at the top of the slide and begins sliding down the tube slide. The child screams as the sun light beams through the clear skylight panels on the slide. The daylight from the exit of the tube of the slide white out the view of the camera. Fade to black. Text appears on screen that reads, Better playgrounds, better world. Landscape Structure logo slides up replacing the text.]