Sweetwater playground at the former Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn, New York is a colorful children’s fun park that’s dandy as old-fashioned candy.

A park with good taste? It’s more likely than you think thanks to locally-based artist Mark Reigelman and what used to be the world’s largest sugar refinery. A Williamsburg waterfront icon for the better part of two centuries, the old Domino Sugar Refinery has been transformed into Domino Park boasting a site-specific play environment called Sweetwater: “the sweetest playground in New York City.”

How Sweet It Was

Reigelman set out to create more than just a playground, though the result is eminently playable on its own. Instead, the artist elected to pay homage to the former Domino Sugar Refinery and, by extension, the long history of sugar manufacturing in America’s vibrant northeast. In a glazed nutshell, the playground invites children to explore the sugar refining process without getting their hands sticky, no matter what the weather..

Sweet (American) Dreams

The Domino Sugar Refinery was built in 1856 and additional infrastructure made it the world’s largest sugar refinery by 1882. The location on the banks of the East River facilitated the import of raw sugar cane from around the world. The factory employed approximately 4,500 people at its height, giving countless numbers of immigrants a boost into the American workforce – melting pots made for sugar AND people (though not at the same time).

Let the Dominos Fall

The factory ceased sugar refining operations in 2004 and stood abandoned until 2017, when the James Corner Field Operations-designed waterfront space known as Domino Park was created. Opened to the public on June 10th of 2018, Domino Park invites visitors of all ages to enjoy the remnants of this historic site, the soaring Williamsburg bridge, and the iconic Manhattan skyline. The youngest among us might have the most fun, however, as they climb up and down ramps, worm their way through tubes, trundle across conveyor belts and zip down slides from one end of Sweetwater to the other.

Sucrose For Comfort

Reigelman designed Sweetwater in three distinct interconnected stages: Sugarcane Cabin, Sweetwater Silo, and Sugar Cube Centrifuge. Following the path of raw sugarcane as it arrived at the refinery in days of yore, kids will be chopped up and crushed inside a replica industrial cabin, strained and filtered into sweet water syrup, and finally emerge fully-processed into freshly refined raw sugar… figuratively, of course. Fear not, helicopter parents, your precious progeny will return as sweet (or sour) as they entered.

Fun Factory

Reigelman’s tribute to the old sugar factory relies much on the inclusion of preserved and replica industrial artifacts scavenged from the old refinery complex. Wood floor planks enjoy a second life on the walls of the elevated cabin while colorfully-painted valve wheels cast from the original factory artifacts allow park guests to get a “hands-on” feeling of what the factory was like. Reigelman also sought to disabuse any thoughts of grim Industrial Age workhouses by liberally employing the vibrant yellow, turquoise, green and brushed metal hues that made up the original factory color palette.

Sugar High

Kids might be having too much fun negotiating Sweetwater Park’s 3D twists and turns to notice there’s a method to the interactive “madness”. Reigelman’s master plan envisioned three primary structures: an elevated cabin, a towering silo, and an industrial container.

Refined Recreation Redefined

Stainless steel slides, ramps, ladders and catwalks evoke the atmosphere of the old Domino Sugar Refinery’s complex and complicated architecture and infrastructure. Think of those “Powerhouse” scenes from old Looney Toons shorts and you’ll get the picture. “Truthfully speaking, we might have to join the kids during their outdoor playdates,” according to TimeOut Magazine.

A Treat Grows In Brooklyn

“Domino Park Playground was inspired by the ingenuity of the industrial age, the sugar refining process and the incredible site of the former Domino factory,” to quote from a statement by Reigelman. “The playground is not a celebration of sugar, but a reflection of industrial infrastructure that promotes physical activity, social engagement and a reminder of the unique history of the Domino Waterfront.” One would hope disquieting aromas off the nearby East River don’t cramp the fun factor.

Park Your Pancreas

“With a sugary color palette, dynamic graphics and an industrial visual narrative, Domino Park Playground sets children and adults alike into a space that ignites the adventurous spirit,” adds Reigelman. Best of all, a visit to Sweetwater Park won’t prompt a round of tooth-brushing nor a painful trip to the dentist.

Weird anthropomorphic, gaudily painted concrete octopus slides lurk within hundreds of Japanese playgrounds, silently traumatizing generations of kids.

These playground octopi climbing frame/slide installations are so common and have been around for so long, it’s really no surprise Japanese parents are nonplussed by their ominous presence – doubtless they played on the very same structures when they were kids.

Visibly showing its age, the pastel pink cephalopod playground set above can be found at Hattori Ryokuchi Park in northern Osaka. It was visited by Akira Nakajima in 2009, David Kawabata (sleepytako) in 2013, and Trout Monroe (troutfactory) on January 1st of 2015.

Two-Toned In Tokyo

Nestled into a small playground in the Kitasenju neighborhood of Tokyo’s crowded Adachi ward, this unusually two-toned octopus slide and the manicured grounds surrounding it are pristine enough to be a zen garden… for kids. One wonders if children are even allowed to climb on it.

Reddy Or Not

Unlike many American playgrounds whose old lawsuit-encouraging equipment continues to be updated in the interest of safety, Japan’s vintage octopus slides are, were and will always be perfectly safe… not to mention easy to maintain. Take the venerable installation above, which needed nothing but a new coat of paint to make it good as new. Once sun-bleached as pink as a beached conch in Flickr user sallyhancox’s 2009 photo, it blazes fire engine red in her image snapped two and a half years later.

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Suckers Japans Ubiquitous Octopus Playground Slides

Climb a ladder, swing on a hammock-like seat and run your hands along various wooden surfaces on this strange polyphonic playground, and your movements will create a unique song. Studio PSK teamed up with beatboxer Reeps One to create this multi-sensory play experience for this year’s London Design Festival, encouraging people to interact with an unusual physical fusion of music, design and technology.

Designer Patrick Stevenson-Keating d Reeps record a bunch of different sound banks of samples, which were then loaded onto the program Ableton Live and mapped to trigger points on the playground. A product called ‘Electric Paint,’ which sends signals to the computer, is screen-printed onto paper tiles and covered in protective acrylic, acting as giant keys on a keyboard.

The wooden playground frame is like one big musical instrument in this sense, setting off cascades of sound as participants clamber up the steps or take a trip down the slide. In addition to the conductive paint on the wooden elements, the team integrated copper tape into the slide and conductive thread in the swings.

“We were always very clear from the start that we wanted ‘play’ to be an important part of the project,” the designer tells Bare Conductive. “…Often we communicate quite complex ideas or narratives, but by employing a playful strategy to do so, we can engage with the audience in more meaningful ways. This was certainly the hope for the Polyphonic Playground.”

Somewhere between a huge funhouse, playground and circus, the City Museum of St. Louis may be the most entertaining and interactive urban architectural experiment in the world. And if you are not having a good time, you can always hop on the 10-story slide, a remnant of the structure’s days as a shoe factory (originally designed to send products down the side of the building).

Eclectic from its stylings to its offerings, this unique place features everything from recycled buses and airplanes to giant multi-story slides and artificial caverns as well as more conventional kid-friendly fun in the form of skate parks and ball pits.

Various other imported, salvaged and upcycled oddities can be found throughout, including a vault and safety deposit boxes from a Chicago bank. And the place is constantly changing, being reconfigured and hacked away at by the Cassilly Crew.

What started inside of a derelict structure in the late 1990s has burst from the walls of the building, featuring an array of exterior ‘exhibits’ as well. Visitors can climb ramps, bridges and tunnels to access a high-hanging plane and other repurposed spaces. Up on the roof sits a small Ferris Wheel while a bus hangs over the edge of the building (and of course: people are welcome to climb inside).

The owners boast that they are “always building,” and Gallery Hip summarizes the strange paradoxes of this ever-changing place: “popular among residents and tourists, the museum bills itself as an ‘eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel.’ Visitors are encouraged to feel, touch, climb on, and play in the various exhibits.” Or, as Colossal describes it: “hundreds of feet of tunnels that traverse from floor to floor, an aquarium, ball pits, a shoe lace factory, a circus arts facility, restaurants, and even a bar… because why not?”

Faced with this amazing place, one is left to wonder: would such an unusual endeavor be approved of were it being started from scratch today, or would safety-minded citizens suck the fun out before it got started? Like Adventure Playgrounds, also more popular in an era now past, it is hard to imagine this kind of project getting off the ground, but thankfully there is a precedent: it is hard to argue with the success of the City Museum.

Admit it – you’re jealous of the little kids who get to romp in those inflatable bounce houses. Once we reach a certain age (or weight), we’re just not welcome in those primary-colored playgrounds any longer. But some lucky kids-at-heart got a chance to relive the fun of that experience with ‘Net Blow-Up,’ most recently installed near the waterfront in Yokohama by Croatian-Austrian design collective Numen/For Use.

The inflatable play structure looks like a big white bubble in its spot beside the water, glowing like a lantern once the sun goes down. Inside, it’s strung with multiple levels black netting that’s just stretch enough to climb, jump and flip to your heart’s desire.

Watching it from the outside might be almost as fun as bouncing around within it, as the soft-sided structure deforms and mutates with each movement of those inside. “The outer membrane acts both like a ‘soft box’ diffuser of the outside light, or a projection screen in case of inner illumination of the installation,” say the designers.

Inflatables are popular as temporary installations, since they’re so easy to install and take down. Plus, they tend to have a lighthearted, comical look. Two recent examples include the Bridge in Paris and the world’s first inflatable concert hall, the Ark Nova.