Milton Keynes Adventure Playground, Archigram, Calvert End, UK, 1972

The Archigram archives are now fully online at the University of Westminster.  Given the irreverent speculation their practice liked to engage in it's appropriate, I think, that their only public built structure was a playground:  an adventure space for unconstrained construction in the presumptive 'new town' utopia (1967) of Milton Keynes,  frequented by architecture-types and their children in spite of its leaky roof.

 

It has long since been demolished, but Iqbal Alaam at flickr has a couple of vintage photos of the 'boat' (the smokestacks were actually ventilation for the toilets), showing spaces for play on both the ground level and the roof terrace.  

Though this was their only official playspace, other aspects of Archigram's inherent playfulness (cheekiness might be a better description) were congruent with 1970s playground design, and their 'Universal Structure' [source] has obvious overlaps with the previously blogged original Golden Gate Playground in San Francisco.

[Thanks to Susan Solomon (author of American Playgrounds: Revitalizing Community Space) for the photos of vintage Golden Gate Park...I've never discovered what happened to this equipment.  If you know, get in touch!]