The Oakwood Playground: 40 Years of Play

Micah McIntyre
Independent Filmmaker and grandson of Oakwood School Founders Bob & Mary McIntyre

I cried when my grandfather, Robert McIntyre, told me I couldn't go to Oakwood because that meant I couldn't go to the playground every day. I spent hours on campus with him and my dad growing up and even more hours outside. I learned how to swing on the swing set, ate my dollar menu meals from McDonald's in the crawl space that looks onto the field and hid in the tunnel when it was time to leave. 

When I tell people my dad (Lane McIntyre, Head of School) works at Oakwood, most don't know where I'm talking about until I say it's the school on Braddock Road with the big wooden playground. For forty years, the playground has served the student body, their families, and the surrounding neighborhoods, becoming a staple in the local community. There's rarely a day when the swings are empty, and the slide is not being used, even through the winter months. 

In 1983, having established a permanent place on Braddock Rd, the school decided it needed a playground. Renowned designer Robert Leathers created hundreds of similar playgrounds around the country and was hired to design Oakwood's. In the planning process, my grandfather, Robert McIntyre, had one condition: that Leathers meet with the students, teachers, and physical therapists to create something that aligned with the educational mission of Oakwood School. 

With the design completed, Leathers flew down from New York to supervise the project, run entirely by volunteer workers. There were a handful of carpenters and craftsmen on site, but the majority of workers were students, parents, and friends of Oakwood. Four days later, volunteers completed the project and gave the school its signature playground. 

There are only a handful of fully wooden playgrounds left in the United States. Hundreds were built from the late '70s through the early '90s, but wood is notoriously hard to maintain and school districts and counties gradually began tearing them down and replacing them with synthetic materials. Many say the average lifespan of a wooden playground is only 10 years. Oakwood's may have surpassed its life expectancy but it hasn't outlived its purpose. 

From conception, the playground was designed to be an extension of the education at Oakwood and a welcoming place for the community. The school itself is easier to see from the road with the renovation and expansion, but every person traveling down Braddock Rd will always see those colorful spires first. They are the physical representation of Oakwood's mission, its emphasis on creativity, imagination, and embodied learning.

There is no single path from one end of the playground to another. Just as there is no single way to learn. We explore, we adapt, and we find tunnels and nooks along the way we didn't notice on our first time through. 

Micah is a graduate of Wheaton College with a degree in Communication and Media Studies. He is a freelance journalist, videographer, and film editor working in the mid-Atlantic area. To reach Micah directly, contact him via email.