The Pile

On the Pile

Make something

Take anything off the Pile and say what it is now. A pallet can be a wall or a raft or a ladder, and a bucket can be a drum or a hat, and nobody here tells you which. Paint the last thing you put down, or knock it all down and start again. Nothing you make is kept, and nothing is scored.

What is on the Pile

Everything Ryan asked for, and what each of them has been. The paint is tempera, which dries chalky and washes off hands.

• Duct tape

  Silver, sticky, tears along its threads when you pull it sideways.

  It has been what holds it together, a hinge and a handle, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Fabric

  Old sheets, curtains and a parachute with a hole in it.

  It has been a flag, a door, a roof and a hammock, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Bubble wrap

  A roll of it, every bubble still unpopped.

  It has been a roof that lets the light in, a window and something to pop, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Sand

  A pile of it, damp underneath and dry on top.

  It has been a castle, a road, a moat and a mountain, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Old wooden furniture

  A kitchen chair with one short leg, a drawer with no chest, a door off its hinges.

  It has been a throne, a lookout and a step up, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Tempera paint

  In pots, chalky when it dries, and it washes off hands.

  It has been a colour on whatever you made, a handprint and a sign, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Plywood pieces

  Offcuts, splintery at the edges, some with paint on already.

  It has been a wall, a ramp, a roof and a sign, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Pallets

  Heavy, slatted, and the gaps are good for climbing.

  It has been a wall, a floor, a raft and a ladder, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Pianos

  An old upright, out of tune, with three keys that stick.

  It has been a piano, a stage and a wall, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Buckets

  Plastic, some with handles and some without.

  It has been a drum, a stilt, a moat's water and a hat, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Shovels

  Short ones and long ones, and a trowel nobody can find.

  It has been a moat, dug, a lever and a bridge over a ditch, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Ropes

  Thick and rough, and some thin and smooth, tied in knots nobody can undo.

  It has been a swing, a bridge, a pulley and a fence, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Tree stumps

  Round, heavy, and warm on top in the sun.

  It has been a seat, a stepping stone and a table, and it is whatever you say it is.

• Old playground equipment

  A metal slide off a playground that closed, and half a roundabout.

  It has been a slide, a ramp, a roof and a bridge, and it is whatever you say it is.

Play is learning

Our own page about play has a heading, Play Is Learning, and the first thing under it is this:

The same page quotes AnjiPlay’s own statement on what true play is:

And a playground like this one, in a builder’s own words:

That is as far as the Pile goes on what play is for. Nothing on the Pile is for anything, and the room does not sell play by what it might lead to. The people who work on playgrounds like this one put it this way:

Where junk playgrounds come from

• The idea is a Danish landscape architect's, Carl Theodor Sørensen's, who wrote in 1931 about a junk playground where children could make their own world out of what was lying about. (Adventure playground, Wikipedia)
• The first was set up in Emdrup, in Denmark, during the German occupation. Wikipedia's article on adventure playgrounds says 1943, and its article on Sørensen says 1940; we have not read anything that settles it. (Adventure playground, Wikipedia)
• Lady Allen of Hurtwood, a landscape architect, brought the idea to Britain after the war, to the bomb sites, in a book of 1946 called Why Not Use Our Bomb Sites Like This? There the name changed from junk playground to adventure playground, to make it easier for councils to say yes to. (Adventure playground, Wikipedia)
• They are staffed by playworkers, and playwork, in Wikipedia's words, is the work of creating and maintaining spaces for children to play. (Playwork, Wikipedia)
• The one at the Berkeley Marina opened in 1979 and is still there. (Adventure Playground, the City of Berkeley)
• The Land, at Plas Madoc in Wales, seven miles south of Wrexham, has been open since 2011, and Erin Davis made a film about it, The Land, in 2015. (The Land (adventure playground), Wikipedia, and Erin Davis's page for her film The Land (2015))
• The Yard, on Governors Island, is New York's only adventure playground, and grown-ups stay outside the main area so the children can play their own way. (The Yard, play:groundNYC)
• The idea under all of them has a name, the theory of loose parts, from the artist Simon Nicholson in 1971. (Simon Nicholson, Wikipedia)

Simon Nicholson’s sentence is the one the theory is quoted by:

The Pile is for anybody, at any age. Nothing on it has been made safe, and nothing has been made dangerous on purpose: how high you climb is yours to decide.

To read

Ryan’s six, in his order:

• Adventure Playgrounds, Explore Visit Play
• Adventure playground, Wikipedia
• What Is a Junk Playground?, PS Family
• Experimental Playgrounds, mssv
• Unconventional Playgrounds: Built from Junk, Shaped by Concrete, Freed by Play, ArchDaily
• play:groundNYC, play:groundNYC

The old telly on the Pile

Somebody brought a television, and it works. It has nothing of its own on it. The rack holds Ryan’s pick of adventure playgrounds elsewhere: The Land in Wales, the Yard on Governors Island, Berkeley twice, Irvine, a forest one in Maryland and a muddy one in Huntington Beach. Every film says how long it runs before you press it, and one starts where Ryan’s link did. The titles are the channels’ own, quoted as they wrote them.

Take it off the telly

Next door

The Pile is the lot past the Green, where the buildings stop. Through the gate on the left is the Green, and past it the Truck Stop and the Run.

House rules

• Anything on the Pile can be anything.
• Nobody tells anybody what to build, or how, or whether it was a good idea.
• Take it apart when you are done, or leave it for whoever comes next.
• Nothing is scored: not what you made, not how high you got, and not you.

What the Pile keeps

• Nothing about you. What you made lives in this page and nowhere else, and is knocked down when you leave it. The Pile’s own script stores nothing in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. A film on the telly loads from YouTube only when you press it.
• Every part says what it is like in words, as well as in its drawing.
• Nothing plays until you press play, and every film says how long it runs first.

Whose it is

The brief is Ryan Boren’s, of 2026-10-05, and so is the name. Three of the quotations were read on our own Play page; Simon Nicholson’s on Wikipedia’s article on him, and the Playwork Principles on Play Wales’s page for them. Where junk playgrounds come from was read on the pages named beside each line. The films on the rack are their channels’, and Ryan’s pick, and so are the six pages to read. The type is Rubik Wet Paint, by NaN and Luke Prowse, for the Pile’s name and nothing else, and Shantell Sans, by Shantell Martin with Arrow Type and Anya Danilova, for every other word, both under the SIL Open Font Licence. Every source is in the liner notes.