Barbara Butler Artist-Builder Inc.

View Original

Public Use Play Structure for CCJDS in Lafayette, CA

New, exciting, public use play structure that Barbara custom-designed for the Contra Costa Jewish Day School in Lafayette, CA. It will be a fully enclosed, self-contained redwood & rope netting play structure built up on top of 8′ high concrete planter boxes and running along the edge of the play space.


Access up (on right) via the steps enclosed by the “Ball Wall” then up the angled ship’s ladder, through clubhouse #1, through the crawl tunnel, through the clubhouse #2, through the rope net bridge, through Clubhouse #3 and down the tunnel tube slide (on left) out onto the open playground. Plenty of activity while only using a minimal amount of current playground space.

Building started back in the shop as soon as Barbara was able to get the variance and permit sign offs. For this complicated design it takes a lot of conferring with the whole team.

Marco, an exceptional builder, makes the curved steps that have to conform exactly to the concrete wall when we bring it to site. Tricky!

As soon as pieces are built they go to the staining bay, where Rudi adds the natural tung-oil stain colors. Then everything is set outside to dry in the sun. Time is off the essence as there is only 2 weeks to build, stain and pre-assemble! Normally, this size project would take up 4 weeks of our schedule. We are on double-time…

Fortunately, Rudi, our master stainer, has the experience, fortitude and know-how to get it all done.

As soon as the stained pieces are dry, the guys start to pre-assemble the play structure in our shop to make sure that everything fits together perfectly. Our motto is that it’s better to find & fix any problems in the shop then when on site. Everything is geared for the on-site installation to run quickly and smoothly… and because of their diligence, it usually does!

See our newest and biggest Public Works here…