This is a project that I didn’t mostly built and designed, my main contribution was conceptualizing and crafting some key parts, but given the impact that had on the kids that have experienced it, and in many friends who wanted to know how I decided to make a place with these characteristics, I thought it was worth sharing.

So, I will start from the beginning… like many featured projects of my last years, our tiny festival was a big force to bring them alive. In 2024, after a couple of editions, I considered it would be great to create a place specially for kids. The specifications for me were:

• To use as natural materials, if possible, just wood.
  
• To be able to host a wide range of activities, from more energic to more calm games.
  
• To have a ball pit.

Yes I know, the last one was just a whim, but I honestly think they are awesome, as a kid and as an adult I have had a lot of fun in them, and I’ve seen how youngsters love it so much that I just aimed to make it happen.

I’m not totally sure why, but I think it was quite straightforward to choose a geodesic dome to build this space, it was probably because I wanted a place for kids, and in many occasions kids feel they are not given what adults or other people have, as we have many other geodesic domes on site, I may have thought: ok, a geodesic dome for you too.

Then it was going to be wooden dome, something I’ve seen before but never built, and with a ball pit inside. I did a survey of the carpenters that had experience with this kind of structures, then thought about some different ideas about how and where the ball pit should be, we researched about the floor… all this as you can imagine, in a very few weeks.

Finally the project was going to run like this: I was going to take care of the ground, the pit, the floor, while the contractor would develop the structure of a 27m2 dome on top with a skylight and an entrance, besides, for the external coating, I was going to find a pvc coat, but that was something I’ve done before, it shouldn’t be a big issue.

In January 2025 I called for the backhoe, we leveled the terrain and dug the pit, which given the size of dome we chose, was going to be 2.6m long, 1.5m wide and 60cm deep. Then I purchased some big pallets (2.2m x 2.0m) and framed it to build the floor. This was a very quick and dirty idea, I don’t know how long they are going to last, but given we wanted the place built for April that year, we went that way.

In February the building started and by March the dome, the entrance and the skylight was done. We still had to develop a nice floor for playing, the entrance and a place to host the balls in the pit. All that was done with a lot of help from JP and Lu in record time by the end of the month, I recall that it was a lot of what we developed for that time. Of course as always we learnt about how much we should aim given the effort, friction and human tear that these kinds of goals result in.

In addition to the dome and the pit, we had other main features that made it even more spectacular. On one hand, a wooden slide that was donated by a family, and an hexagonal entrance that ended up being amazing, in both of them a carpenter friend helped us out. Also my sister created a Montessori board while Lu harvested a big donation of puzzles, toys, books, and many other games.

Of course, like always, many challenges appeared making it happen. One of the main ones is that below the plastic that holds the balls of the pit, it got flooded many times, and although we have made a drain, it hasn’t been enough. When we have over 50mm in a couple hours, it’s difficult to take out water underground because it is full of mud. This was clearly a mistake by myself in calculations and I’m still a little angry with me haha, because it’s that kind of underestimation that after so many years on the farm I shouldn’t make. 

Another big challenge in the development was to find 6000 balls in Uruguay, I know this might sound easy in most places of the world, but given we’re not in the entertainment industry, we don’t have amazon.com and this country has a small market, sometimes something bulky is not that straight forward. We also discussed if they should be plastic or another more organic and natural material, we considered natural rubber and even dried small pumpkins, but the affordance and experience we were trying to make wasn’t going to be created in shape and budget.

Lastly, a challenge, but also a reward has been how to make kids and their parents “hug” this place. Think about a space that it’s in general just governed by kids and early teens, it’s kind of a mix of playfulness, noise and anarchy, but at the same time, it’s probably one of those true experiences of respect, empathy and growth that the younger ones can have. I’m personally a big advocate of leaving kids by themselves, letting them make decisions, playing to their instincts, while on many occasions, surveillance, adult presence and instructions is really unhealthy for their self esteem and development. Of course, a lot of observation to find balance and guidance is key, but this is a topic of another subject.

Going back to the development of the project, I can assure that the feedback has been absolutely outstanding, I feel the place has given more smiles and wonder than any other for every autumn and spring when we gather. Some key elements made this happen:

1. Nobody expects to have a place like this one for kids in the middle of a farm. It ended up being very beautiful: the colours, the wood, the game atmosphere is kind of a place you enter and people say: wow.
2. The ball pit with the swing gave that kind of attraction to kids that it’s difficult to quit, even after a whole day inside.
3. Kids have a place where they belong with other kids, while also parents help to keep it peacefully and in order, we really need their help by the end for this. ☺️

With the years we have collected stories and tales that are difficult to believe, from a baby that didn’t know how to walk and came out of her mothers tent in the morning, crawled and entered to the dome by himself to families that just assist to our tiny festival because their kids want to come to this place.

Also I would like to share that many friends have asked me why I personally choose to develop a place like this given I don’t personally have kids, and I don’t know how to answer that, it might be strange but for me it was quite easy, maybe I didn’t think much about it. In a way, I honestly think we’re all parents, or actually, we’re just the group of adults that will leave the planet to the next generation, call it parents or not, I believe we have the bless to be alive and it’s nice to leave it better or at least the same way it was.

Special thanks for this project to Lumpi, JP, Lu, Meri, Lulix, Laura, Rober, Gorka and Tomas the contractor.