When it comes to playground design, older students are often overlooked. Westwood Middle School in Blaine, Minnesota, shows how a thoughtfully designed play space can keep middle school-aged kids and teens moving, challenging themselves, and spending more time outdoors.

Rather than relying on traditional playground equipment, this space was designed around climbing, physical challenge, and high-energy play. The project combines equipment from three leading manufacturers to create an experience that feels engaging and age-appropriate for older students.

Color, creativity, and community come together at First United Methodist Church Community Park in Indianola, Iowa. 

Designed as a welcoming space for families to gather and children to explore, this vibrant playground offers imaginative play experiences for all ages. The colorful surfacing adds energy to the space while creating a fun and inviting environment for the entire community.

Midwest Playscapes was proud to partner with First United Methodist Church, Playworld, No Fault Surfaces, and Play-Soleil to bring this vision to life. The playground features Playworld equipment, premium poured-in-place safety surfacing from No Fault Surfaces, and innovative solar-powered lighting from Play-Soleil integrated directly into the play structure posts, extending both the beauty and functionality of the space.

A special thank you to our Project Manager, Austin Tasler, for helping guide this project from concept to completion.

We're honored to help create spaces where communities can gather, children can thrive, and memories are made for years to come.

Ledgeview Park

Midwest Playscapes partnered with the City of Big Lake to bring a new destination playground to Lakeside Park, featuring age-specific play zones, nautical-themed equipment, accessible play features, and more than 8,000 square feet of poured-in-place rubber safety surfacing along the lakeshore in Big Lake, Minnesota.

At American Family Field, Midwest Playscapes partnered with the Milwaukee Brewers and a team of design and construction specialists to bring the Joie Play Yard to life — a custom, inclusive playground built to give fans of all ages a place to play before every home game.

Explore Heritage Park in Corcoran, MN, a custom farm-themed community playground designed by Midwest Playscapes featuring inclusive play, accessible ramps, poured-in-place surfacing, and Playworld equipment.

Picture two playgrounds. One is a standard "catalog" layout dropped onto a perfectly flat pad. It is perfectly fine, but it could be anywhere. The other weaves between existing trees, tucks a slide into a hillside, and follows the way people naturally move across the park. That second space is what sustainable playground design looks like when you design with the site, not against it.

On any busy summer afternoon, watch any playground long enough and you will see it—one child on the sidelines, watching instead of playing. Maybe they use a wheelchair, need to avoid loud spaces, or simply cannot reach the “cool” equipment everyone else is climbing on. That quiet moment of exclusion is exactly what inclusive playground design exists to fix. As Andrew Pudwill, President of Midwest Playscapes likes to say, “Inclusive design isn’t optional—it’s the standard for how we think about every project.”

Designing a destination playground is one thing. Installing it on a steep hillside with tight tolerances, challenging access, and large pre-assembled components is another. For landscape architects, complex playground construction is where design intent gets protected, or compromised. At Midwest Playscapes, we help LAs carry the concept through real-world logistics, safety, and sequencing so the finished park matches the plan.

We’re thrilled to announce the completion of a brand-new playground at Harris-Lake Park Elementary School! This project represents a true collaboration between our team and several incredible partners, and we’re excited to share the details.

Midwest Playscapes is proud to celebrate the opening of a new destination playground at Lake Elmo Park Reserve in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Thoughtfully designed to highlight the natural beauty of the park, this project creates a regional play space where families of all ages and abilities can gather, explore, and connect with nature.

We’re proud to announce the completion of a one-of-a-kind project: a custom-designed teen playground at the Boys & Girls Club of Neenah in Wisconsin. This new space redefines what playgrounds can be,  created not for toddlers or young kids, but for the physical, social, and developmental needs of older youth.