Rising Stars: Meet Nathan Schleicher

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nathan Schleicher. 

Hi Nathan, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Earthscape Play makes imaginative wood-forward playgrounds that are typically custom and uniquely site-specific in their design. We started out about a dozen years ago doing landscape design/build but the playground side of what we were doing really took off after helping with the play area at Governer’s Island in New York six years ago. It’s always been a goal to connect children with nature; to get them active and engaged in play in a unique way, and to offer an alternative to typical manufactured playground equipment. Our first Colorado playground was the park outside the Boulder Civic Library. We typically work with local designers and architects and in this case, we collaborated with the city of Boulder, and organization called Growing Up Boulder, and TLS Landscape Architecture. Since then, we’ve worked with the cities of Denver, Fort Collins, Aspen, Breckenridge, and more. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Designing something new from scratch is always tough. Our custom one-of-a-kind projects go through the same process of design, safety reviews, and engineering that a mass-produced product goes through. It’s a lot of work, so you have to love the challenge to do this job. For the dragon we did for City Park in Denver we had a blast coming up with different poses and personalities our creature could have. The challenge was picking the right identity concept for this site. Some of that is aesthetic but a lot of it is about predicting possible play experiences. Will the sculpture offer affordances for a wide variety of abilities? Will it be challenging for a 12-year-old; will it inspire awe in a 5-year-old? These are wonderful questions to explore when coming up with fresh playground concepts. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My role on the team is as a concept designer. A good chunk of my day is sketching or modeling things like flying trains or giant mischievous raccoons. I am always talking with clients to discuss ideas and do research into the story of the space the playground is slated for. Sometimes the story comes from a place of pure art but other times we are drawing inspiration from native flora & fauna or maybe telling the history of a local industry or culture. 

My favorite parts of the creative process are the transition points. When research turns into a sketch; when a sketch gets turned into a 3D model; when a model gets turned into real object… The idea only gets more exciting with each evolution. 

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I always wanted to be an inventor when I was little. Think mad-scientist. I spent a lot of time sketching Rube Goldberg machines and building things with my Legos. A pretty good chunk of my time was spent outside. I loved to build forts in the woods, fashioning semi-floatable rafts from found objects, and eating picnics at the top of good climbing trees. 

Contact Info:

• Email: nathan.schleicher@earthscapeplay.com
• Website: https://www.earthscapeplay.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthscapeplay

Image Credits:
Julia Vandenoever Photography
Kelsey Booth Photography
Kara Pearson Photography