Leathers & Associates: The Playground’s Design Pick

 There were many sad community members back in November when the previous wooden castle playground was torn down across from the Highview Elementary School in Nanuet. However, those sad thought are quickly fueling the excitement coming up for Design Day.

Design Day is the big reveal of the design for the next playground to be built in the fall.

Several community members came together to form several committees to tackle the task of rebuilding the playground. After going through several designers, the steering and design committees chose Leathers & Associates to design the new Highview Community Playground.

“The philosophy: ‘Unique playgrounds, Imagined by Children, Built by Community’ and ‘Community built BUILDS Community’ mirrors that of our philosophy uniquely encompassing the ‘Together we can build it again’ slogan,” said Michelle Mazzaro, president of the playground’s steering committee. “A perfect marriage between design, build and community.”

Based in Ithaca, Leathers & Associates designed the previous castle playground in 1990, which was a community-funded and built project.

Bob Leathers did start with swings and slides; he focused on residential design and construction when he opened his architectural business.

However, that changed after he was asked to help build a playground for his kids’ elementary school back in 1971 in Ithaca. He asked the students what they wanted and designed around their ideas. Then parents, children and the community built the playground; it was a success and news of his success traveled.

Now 40 years later, Leathers & Associates still uses the same process Bob did for his kids and many other kids in Ithaca. Today Bob’s son, Marc, owns Leathers and

• 2,000: number of projects Leathers has worked on since the first one in 1971; They’ve worked on projects in all 50 states
• 7: number of countries Leathers has worked in
• 10: average number of years a Leathers employee has worked with the company.

• Administration
• Design
• Drafting
• Project management
• Construction supervision.
• Almost all employees are Certified Playground Safety Inspectors through the National Recreation & Parks Association
• Playgrounds meet or exceed ASTM International and the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines for public playgrounds

For more examples of playground designs from Leathers, go check out their website.