Tree Weaves

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Community Pizza Tree Weave

River Echeverria

This absolutely stunning Tree Weave is located in the beautiful small town of Wimberley, Texas. Nestled in the heart of the town center, the 1-level weave is installed as a playground at Community Pizza and Beer Garden. This playground was installed with the intention of being a great draw for the local community as a place for families to gather and allow their kids to play in a safe, fun, and uniquely dynamic playground. Our focus while installing this project was to not only design a playground that brought form and function to the play area, but also a design that displayed beauty and color. If you are interested in a custom built playground from Tree Weaves, please contact us anytime at (916) 896-8984.

After tearing down the previous wooden playground stylized in the shape of a ship, the owners of Community Pizza were looking for a replacement for this iconic structure that would help bring people together and provide value to the community. Tree Weaves was able to offer the perfect solution. Construction of this signature Tree Weaves playground started in the Spring of 2022 and wrapped up in late spring. The playground took around 35 days to complete with plans of adding additional higher platforms in the future. 

The Community Pizza tree net is rigged as a single platform, but don’t let the simplicity of a single-level platform fool you. This playground brings many additional features that truly make Community Pizza a favorite destination for the local community of Wimberley and a welcome surprise to visitors. The playground features a built-in slide, a spider web climbing wall, 15 hand-woven mandalas, and hand-woven stairs which allow easy access into the net. It is also extremely bouncy, and on any given day you can find at least 10 kids hopping about on this giant spider web trampoline. 

Woven into the walls of the net itself, the slide adds a fun way for kids to exit the playground. Originally installed in the middle of the net, we learned that the net had too much movement for the slide to be supported without breaking. Our solution was to cut out the slide and weave it closer to the entryway where there is less movement in the net. Additionally, we attached a metal bar to the wooden frame at the top of the slide that is anchored to the floor and a perimeter tree for extra stability. Now, local families are no stranger to the sight of children lining up for their turn on the slide while others gleefully jump around the middle of the net.

Another popular feature of the playground is the spider web climbing wall on the backside of the installation. The spider web wall is constructed of golden webbing woven together to form comfortable rungs to allow kids to climb playfully while still within the safety of the net. The climbing wall faces directly into the covered outdoor patio for Community Pizza allowing parents a perfect vantage point to watch their children play while enjoying mouthwatering craft pizza and beer with friends.

One of the most visually striking features of the Community Pizza Weave is the hand-woven mandalas installed throughout the floors and walls of the playground. These colorful patterns add a truly artistic appeal to the net that immediately draws the eye of any passerby. While this is not a feature we use in all of our tree nets, we love the look of them and are always happy to discuss the option of adding them to the design of a weave prior to starting an installation.

The mandalas were woven in Asheville, North Carolina prior to the start of the project by Tree Weave’s very own, Mary Kate. One of the mandalas installed within the floor of the playground was allowed to sag, forming a convenient basket. We love weaving baskets and pockets into tree nets. They provide an excellent space to store small items, such as phones, wallets, or keys.

Another fun feature added to this playground installation is the entry stairs. There are a lot of different ways we can make an entryway into a Tree Weave. We often like to let the natural formations of the trees and surrounding area inspire our approach in rigging a new project. With the Community Pizza playground, the two trees that serve as the entry side of the playground were perfect for installing the beautifully woven steps that lead up to the main platform. It is always nice when we get to weave steps in this style as they provide a larger surface area for your foot and more stability as you step up into the weave. Stylistically they are also very innovative and aesthetically pleasing.

There were also some features that were installed at the original completion of the net, but were later removed. The first was a swing that we rigged on space ropes that connected in the open area of the playspace. The swing was wild and had a lot of motion. Honestly it was the ideal fun swing you would want for your yard, but it just had too much pendulation for an area with so much traffic, so we moved it. It’s next home underneath the floor level of the playground. The swing was a popular attraction and can be a fun addition to any weave. However, the swing we purchased and installed proved to be a little too fragile for the beating it took from constant use, and we later removed it. We have made many of our own swings that are more robust, and we may install a more custom swing in the future if the clients choose to go that route. 

We had also originally rigged monkey bars for kids to swing on underneath the floor level of the playground. Monkey bars are a super fun feature that can add an extra element of play to any Tree Weave installation. Ultimately they did not go with the flow of the playground and we removed them.

The color palette used in this playground was chosen to provide a bright and fun pop of color to the play area. The paracord colors that were used within the weave include:

The ropes and hard materials were these:

The Community Pizza Tree Weave has rapidly become one of our most popular playground installations and one that we take a lot of pride in. We are so happy to see the positive impact this playscape has already had on the community. It brings us such joy to create a place for friends and families to gather around and experience genuine joy and fun for everyone. 

Click here to check out the Instagram post for this epic Tree Weaves playground. If you get the opportunity to visit Community Pizza and Beer Garden and experience this visually stunning tree net, be sure to share your photos with us using the hashtag #communitypizzatreeweave 

Whenever you’re visiting the Austin, Texas area, be sure to take a day trip down to Wimberly and check out this awesome playground we built for Community Pizza. Community Pizza has an amazing selection of artisan pizzas, fine appetizers, beers and a really great cocktail menu, all of which can be enjoyed while watching people play and enjoy the net. Be sure to climb up yourself, even if it is covered with bouncing kids; the installation is for everyone. If you’re lucky, late at night when the kids go home, you can even sit up there with your beer and watch the venue’s live musicians perform.