Please Touch Museum's Latest Play Area Sports Super-Size Building Blocks
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Please Touch Museum, in Fairmount Park, today unveiled a new play area designed to ignite the imaginations of children who use it.
The new playspace, called "Imagination Playground," is located in the former "Rainforest Rhythm" exhibit space. Museum curator Stacey Swigart says it gets its name from the giant foam-block play system developed by architect David Rockwell.
"The wall space is filled with half-sizes of the blocks, that you can actually play with," Swigart explains. "They've been mounted to the walls, and some have a large holes and small holes. And then the play objects themselves are also similar in size, but there's also round poles and foam 'noodles' -- if you think Tinker Toys, in a way, but on a much larger scale."
Swigart says the blocks are meant to encourage creativity and social skills.
"The size of them kind of requires you to work together with other children," she notes, "so it's a great social experiment."
