Sunshine Playscape — Attraction in Lake View Township

Sunshine Playscape - one of ten playgrounds in Lincoln Park! - is a $1.5 million dollar playground designed by Ayres Associates in collaboration with the Chicago Park District and the Lincoln Park Conservancy. According to the Lincoln Park Conservancy website: "The Sunshine Playscape offers a unique play experience that blends the best of traditional playground equipment with nature-play elements [and] is designed to inspire curiosity and connection with the natural world." This description is generally true - there are a few standard playground elements like slides and swings built into a natural environment. There aren't any large, plastic play structures but instead the slides are set into the sloping terrain, large tree trunks are used as climbing structures, and other natural elements invite exploration and creativity. However, for such an expensive and well-designed park, I had questions about the height of the monkey bars (they are quite high!) and concerns about the lack of shade in the park.

The play area is fully enclosed and is set back from the nearest streets opening onto a large grassy field instead. There are benches and picnic tables within the play area and the play surface is a combination of soft rubber, wood chips, and concrete. Though there are trees surrounding the playscape, the actual play area is quite bright and sunny (perhaps living up to it's name). All in all, this is an interesting and unique playspace that is...

If you are looking for a playground that is more aligned with nature and has wood chips as part of the ground cover, this playground is fabulous. The metal slides do get hot in the summer. Bring water as there wasn't any functioning water fountain to fill a water bottle. There is some shaded area at true entrance but overall, this play space is very sunny. It has a soothing color palette more aligned with nature than the usual bold colors at other cookie-cutter playgrounds. If you've got a bike and don't mind the lakeshore bike path, this is a very convenient place for families. It's one of the best playgrounds in Chicago and usually not...

Looks very nice but is very impractical for a kids playground. It’s perfectly named because there is no shade. Metal slides that get really hot. Monkey bars that are 8 feet off the ground and swings that are 3ft...