Barb King Inspiration Park

Video features Steve King as he tours around the one-of-a-kind playground at Inspiration Park, named in honor of Barb King (1946-2008) cofounder of Landscape Structures.

[video: fade into Steve King standing by a rock structure with a metal park sign reading: Barb King, Inspiration Park.]

Steve: Welcome to the Barb King Inspiration Park here in Delano Minnesota. This is a very special park renamed in the honor of a very special lady.

[video: fade out, fade in to a portrait of Barb King. Text on screen reads: Barb King 1946 – 2008. Fade out and back in to an image of Barb and Steve King outside of the Landscape Structures office building. Text on screen reads: Co-founder of Landscape Structures. Fade out and back into a second portrait of Barb King, text on screen reads: Founder of Sajai Foundation, which was formed to inspire wise activity/nutrition choices among children. Fade out and back into another portrait of Barb King at a playground. Text on screen reads: Passionate Protector of children and the planet earth. Fade out and back into an image of Barb and Steve King leaning through the center of separate playground spider web climbers posing with children for a group picture. Text on screen reads: Committed to creating innovative play equipment.]

[video: fade in to a full panning side view of the Inspiration Park playground.]

Steve voiceover: But now I’d like to take you on a brief tour of the park and really specifically of the memorial playground that was just installed.

[video: Steve stands at the bottom of a roller slide of the playground and speaks to the camera.]

Steve: There’s a couple of things that you will notice right away that become very unique in this whole concept this whole idea of this memorial playground.

Steve voiceover: The roofs the sails shapes the triangular shape is very new and very different to our industry.

[video: camera pans across the playground with the unique triangular shaped metal roofs. Children play on playground spinners in the foreground. Scene switches back to Steve as he walks up to a play structure post.]

Steve: All the posts have a bend right here, causing them to tip out to making them compound angles at all the corners.

[video: Steve walks back over to the end of the roller slide.]

Steve: Barb loved the environment and wanted to take care of it was always very interested in preserving our environment.

[video: Camera zooms in on the steel siding and panels of the playground as families play all around.]

Steve voiceover: So, the steel is at least sixty percent of recycled content. The aluminum is almost a hundred percent of recycled content.

[video: A young girl walks up to a ladder climber made into the steel playground siding. Camera back to Steve as he speaks about the playground.]

Steve: The decks themselves are made out of steel which is recycled and plastic sheets which are also made from recycled material.

Steve voiceover: We have some unique activity panels that we’ve incorporated into this structure.

[video: back view of a boy as he plays at a spinning finder panel. Steve stands on the playground by the Multi Bubble mirror panel.]

Steve: the multi bubble mirror for instance is something you, kids can walk up to it and see themselves appearing in all of those mirrors.

[video: Steve stands by the Spinning Finder panel. He spins the panel to show how the beads inside move and show different shapes and toys inside the viewing tube.]

Steve: Another activity panel that is unique to this structure is this panel where you try to find all of the objects that are inside this and as you roll it around and as materials move through it you can kind of start to pick up and it exposes new things.

[video: Steve kneels at a color wheel panel on the playground and spins it to create different shades and color combinations.]

Steve: It’s a good sunny day you can kind of see as you move through here various color combinations. You can see we got the blue showing up and pretty soon we got greens and oranges showing up.

[video: Steve stands by the learning sensory wall at the playground. He walks around the walk and explains a few of the panels.]

Steve: We chose our sensory wall as one of the products for this park because of the idea that a lot of kids with different abilities can all understand the sensory portions of any play structure. And then we’ve got the kaleidoscope which is really fun and especially in a day like this when it’s so nice and bright, to be able to look in there and see all kinds of different shapes.

[video: Steve walks over the Cozy Dome and explains the play structure.]

Steve: We have found through some of our research that kids really like and really need in a play area like this is a quiet place.

Steve voiceover: So, we included the cozy dome.

[video: two moms and a young girl stand around a red cozy dome. Steve kneels by the entrance of the cozy dome and points to the different sized port holes for interaction.]

Steve: So, it’s a way to get inside something to feel like you’re away yet enclosed but yet plenty of opportunity for interaction with kids on the outside.

[video: Steve walks over to two full bucket infant swings.

Steve: As you can see in the background we have swings for older kids. But in this case, we have the bucket seats for the under twos or two to three years of age type of kids.

[video: two mothers push their children in the full bucket infant seat swings. Steve climbs up onto the playground and explains the fun geometric shaped climber.]

Steve: Now this is a unique climber in that it incorporates the angle I think very effectively. We also use our typical traditional handholds.

Steve voiceover: And of course, the tunnel it’s an interesting feel actually to go through that tunnel not a round tunnel like everybody thinks about but rather a triangular tunnel with bubbles.

[video: top down view of the handholds in the uniquely shaped climber. Camera view through the tunnel with several bubble viewing panels.]

Steve voiceover: Another special feature that we put into this playground is something that we like to see in every playground.

[video: camera zooms out form a full panning view of the playground with families and children all around. Steve stands at a concrete patio with sitting areas and picnic tables with the triangular roofing system.]

Steve: And that’s a central area to gather for parent’s, mother’s, dad’s, and grandmas to all sit down to be able to observe all around them whether you got two to five years old kids or five to twelve-year-old kids.

Steve voiceover: Eventually our plan is to have exercise equipment here. We call it Health beat. For the adults to sit down and exercise while their watching their kids.

[video: a boy exercises on a playground elliptical machine. Scene switch to a still image of a woman on a playground elliptical machine. Fade into an image of several adults using different outdoor exercise equipment. Camera switches back to Steve at the center playground area.]

Steve: Another unique feature about his little plaza area is that we’ve taken two sides here and we have beveled them down for easy access. So, you can see the concrete slab from here on start sloping down way underneath our engineered wood fiber, so it gives children and adults a very easy access whether you’re on crutches or a wheelchair or whatever you’re using for your mobility device.

[video: full view of the playground as Steve sits on a Saddle seat spinner and addresses the camera.]

Steve: Well that was a brief tour of Inspiration Park, I encourage all of you to come to Delano and, and visit Inspiration Park for yourself.   

[video: fade to white, an image of Barb King fills the left side of the screen as pink and grey text on the right read: There is no other playground like Inspiration Park, just like there was no other person like Barb King. Inspiration Park – an innovation park filled with laughter, joy and wonder. Fade to white, original portrait of Barb King with text reading: Barb King 1946-2008. Fade to white as Landscape Structures logo appears with text below reading: playlsi.com 888-438-6574.]