Has China Gone Playground-crazy?

BAM has noticed something out of the ordinary. Playgrounds, playgrounds everywhere! In China BAM has been designing and building more and more playgrounds. Playgrounds on rooftops, playgrounds in central city parks, playgrounds for retail centers, playgrounds for residential developments. Why is BAM’s playground boom happening?

Date：Sept. 1, 2018

Time：13:30-15:00

Speaker: Jacob Schwartz Walker

Translator: Guan Jingwen (Partner at BAM)

Jacob Schwartz Walker (Architect)

Jacob Schwartz Walker, co-founder of Ballistic Architecture Machine (BAM), is a designer with a focus on the urban landscape in China. Originally trained as an architect at Cornell, Jake believes that architecture is only one of many tools in service of the greater landscape idea, and that landscape is the field and realm which requires the most design attention as cities all around the world densify and grow into mega-metropolises. At BAM Jake spearheads many of the BAM urban initiatives such as the redesign of the Guomao intersection in Beijing. At the University of Toronto, Jake leads 'Save Chaotianmen,' a studio focused on Chongqing's most iconic and historic urban conditions. Aside from large scale urban issues, Jake also excels at architectural projects, exemplified in the sculptural elegance of the Titan, a 400-meter-long pedestrian bridge and 100-meter-tall monument for Nanjing’ s new CBD.