Bank of America Makes Dreams Reality with New Playground in Woodruff Park

November 5,2010

Coming soon to Woodruff Park in Downtown Atlanta: a playground. Playable 10 in partnership with ATOP, Atlanta’s Taskforce on Play and the Georgia Institute of Technology, has sponsored an international design competition for an extraordinarily accessible and inventive playground design for Woodruff Park. Charitably, Bank of America will support the construction of the design challenge winner, providing a family-friendly improvement for the park nestled in the heart of Downtown.

The international design competition drew entries from all over the world including competitors from Krakow, Australia, Italy, Singapore, and Estonia. A large number of submissions for the design competition were from the University of Georgia School of Environmental Design which made the competition a school project.

“Bank of America is proud to provide funding to help enhance Woodruff Park as an increasingly vibrant neighborhood resource and deepen our support of the downtown community,” said Geri P. Thomas, Georgia market president for Bank of America. “We’re very eager to see the innovation and sustainable design of the entries .”

The new playground is in good company with the other improvements that have been made in the park over the last few years. Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, since taking on operations of the park, have set their sights on making Woodruff Park the Downtown destination for healthy activity. Best known of these improvements is the Woodruff Park Recreation and Reading Room and the recently installed music system. But other new amenities like exercise and recreation equipment and Walk For Lunch programming have increased the active offerings of this urban oasis.

“Woodruff Park aims to be an amenity for visitors, employees, children and families and no park is complete without a dedicated place to play,” said A.J. Robinson, president of CAP and ADID. “By connecting with Bank of America and Playable 10, we’re bringing great international talent and a ground-breaking design to serve Downtown.”

The judges in the competition rated each entry on the following criteria: playable, original, sustainable, feasible, multi-generational, accessible, and inspires movement. A full listing of the decorated national roster of judges can be found here. An announcement of the winning design and designer is expected at the beginning of November.