How USM's New Playground Supports Play, and Why It Matters

By Michael Tauscher

At the beginning of the 2026-27 school year, University School of Milwaukee opened a new playground, called FUNville, used daily by students in prekindergarten through 8th grade. The new layout and equipment better support USM's philosophy of recess as an opportunity to improve social, emotional, cognitive, and physical outcomes, all while having fun and playing with classmates.  

The playground was designed with assistance from KOMPAN, a leading commercial playground equipment manufacturer whose products ignite play, foster creativity, and develop social skills. I recently spoke with Ryan Schroeder, the direct sales representative who helped guide USM through the FUNville project from its earliest ideas through construction and, ultimately, to the playground children are enjoying today. Keep reading to learn about the the finished space, and the strategy and planning that went into it.

Designing Around Children

One of the reasons that USM administrators chose KOMPAN as a contractor was its approach to play. Rather than simply thinking about slides, swings, and climbing structures, its designers consider how children develop physically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially. Ryan described KOMPAN's philosophy as looking at "development from the root." The goal is to create spaces that challenge children in different ways while recognizing that children do not all play the same way.

That thinking influenced the overall layout of FUNville. The school's former playground had different kinds of play scattered throughout the space. To reach one area, a child might have needed to move through another filled with fast-moving, highly active play. KOMPAN's design team thought carefully about how children would move through the new space. Children who want basketball, gaga ball, soccer, or other highly active experiences can gravitate toward those areas, while children looking for traditional playground play, imaginative play, or something quieter can find those spaces without necessarily having to navigate through the most active areas.

Even the large turf hill has a purpose beyond being fun to climb and run over. It helps naturally separate different types of play without fences or signs telling children where they can and cannot go. As Ryan explained, the goal was to create "massive flow across the playground." The space itself helps children find the kind of play they want.

In With the New and Improving on the Old

FUNville certainly doesn't look like the former playground. The metal and brightly colored plastic have largely been replaced with wood, ropes, turf, and more natural materials. That choice was intentional. When Ryan first visited USM, he was struck by the school's history and tradition. He wanted FUNville to feel new and innovative without looking disconnected from the campus around it. "When I thought of USM, I thought of history, I thought of tradition," he told me.

That led to the extensive use of robinia, a black locust wood used by KOMPAN. The wood will naturally change as it is exposed to the elements, and Ryan believes that within 12 to 18 months it will look as though it has been part of the USM campus for years. In fact, he predicts the playground may look even better then because the wood will have begun to age into its surroundings.

At the same time, we didn't want "new" to mean abandoning everything children loved about the former playground. For years, we listened to children tell us what they enjoyed and what they wished they had more of. One request came through particularly clearly: "We want swings!" We listened. FUNville includes traditional belt swings, nest swings, duo swings, and two large Cocowave swings that can hold groups of children together, which have quickly become some of the most popular places on the playground.

The same philosophy applied to our Preschool bike track and sand area. Both were important parts of our former playground so the question wasn't whether to eliminate them, but how to make them better. The bike track was moved out of the center of the playground and redesigned as a two-way path. That simple change creates opportunities for children to navigate traffic moving in both directions, negotiate space, wait, adjust, and pay attention to one another. There is even a gas pump along the way to invite another layer of imaginative play.

Ryan and members of the KOMPAN team also spent time watching children use our old sandbox before designing the new one. Sand can be messy, and Ryan noted that some other community playground projects intentionally move away from it. We saw something different. Sand continued to provide our children with wonderful opportunities for natural, creative play. The new space therefore combines traditional sand play with opportunities for water, building, experimentation, and collaboration, along with a canopy for shade. Sometimes innovation doesn't mean eliminating what came before. It means understanding why children loved it and finding a way to make it even better.

Some Things You Won't Find Anywhere Else

Some parts of FUNville are truly unique to USM. The enormous structure with three linked towers located on the west side of the playground (pictured, above) is, according to Ryan, a "one of one." While the concept had been developed by KOMPAN, he believes ours is the only one of its kind currently installed in the United States. The smaller, single tower on the east side of the playground was designed to complement it, creating a visual connection between the spaces while providing different levels of challenge.

Other KOMPAN signature elements are scattered throughout FUNville. The jungle dome provides a different kind of climbing experience, while the spinners and Cocowave swings allow children to create movement individually or together. An inclusive seesaw in the Preschool area is designed so that a child who uses a mobility device can transfer onto it and participate alongside friends. For FUNville, it was customized with acorns and leaves so it fits naturally into the overall design.

What has been most interesting, however, is not simply the equipment but how differently children use it. A structure may be a climbing challenge for one child, a gathering place for another, and part of an imaginary world for someone else. That is exactly what we hoped would happen.

Giving Children Space to Play

Adults organize a great deal of children's lives, including their schedules, lessons, practices, activities, directions, and expectations. Perhaps one of the most important parts of FUNville is that, on the playground, children decide for themselves exactly how they want to play.

Ryan, who is also a parent and has a background in sports and education, talked about the importance of giving children the opportunity to discover play for themselves. "I think we as parents dictate what kids do a lot," he said. He has enjoyed watching USM give children space to find their path.

That path is going to look different for every child. One child may climb to the top of a tower on the first day. Another may spend weeks watching before deciding to climb halfway. Someone else may have no interest in the tower because the sandbox, swings, basketball court, or a conversation with friends is far more appealing.

All of those choices have value. Children make an extraordinary number of decisions independently when playing on a playground. Can I climb that high? How do I get down? Can I join this game? Whose turn is it? Can we build this together? What do I do when the game doesn't go the way I wanted? Should I try again? Those moments involve physical development, certainly, but they also require communication, problem-solving, confidence, patience, negotiation, creativity, resilience, and friendship. That is learning, too.

Built for Children

There is another part of the FUNville story children didn't get to see: what it took to build it. Our children left school one Friday last spring with their familiar playground still outside and returned after the weekend to discover that much of it had disappeared. What followed over the summer was remarkable.

At certain points, Ryan estimated that 40 to 60 people were working on the site at once. Playground installers, concrete crews, landscapers, and others had to carefully coordinate their work on an incredibly compressed timeline. Through the inevitable challenges that come with a construction project of this size, Ryan said the KOMPAN team kept returning to a simple phrase: "It's for the kids." That phrase appeared repeatedly in messages among the project team throughout the summer and helped bring everyone back to the reason for the work.

Today, approximately 400 Preschool and Lower School children have access to FUNville twice each school day, along with 400 Middle School children and approximately 100 children as part of the E.T.C. PM program. The space can easily experience more than 1,200 individual uses in a school day. It was built to be used, and it certainly is!
Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Ryan what he hopes to see several years from now. His answer wasn't really about the playground. It was about the children. He hopes a child who is in kindergarten today will still be excited about FUNville when that child reaches 5th, 6th, or 7th grade.

The experience, however, will change. A child who stays close to the ground today may climb to the top next year. A Preschooler learning to navigate the bike track will eventually leave that area behind and discover new challenges. Something that feels difficult this September may feel easy by April. The equipment may be the same, but the child won't be.

That may be what I appreciate most about FUNville. It wasn't simply built to entertain children. It was built to grow with them. When you see hundreds of children outside during recess, what may initially look like joyful chaos is filled with learning. Someone is figuring out how to join a group. Someone is deciding whether to climb a little higher. Someone is helping a friend, inventing a game, learning to wait, or trying something today that they weren't quite ready to try yesterday.

That's FUNville. And that's play.

About Michael Tauscher:

Michael Tauscher has served as the head of Preschool and Lower School at University School of Milwaukee since 2015. Born and raised on a family-owned farm in Pulaski, Wisconsin, he holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in educational leadership. With 24 years of experience as an educator, including 17 years as an administrator, Tauscher has worked in early childhood, elementary, and middle school settings, including teaching 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades and gaining international teaching experience in Kyoto, Japan.