About Real Life | Playground Specialists

About Us

Real Life is a design studio that creates places where people can climb, gather, wander, invent games, and occasionally disappear into their own worlds for a while.

Operating at the intersection of art, architecture, landscape and fabrication, our work spans rooftops in Manhattan, parks in the Rocky Mountains, and in neighbourhoods across North America. Every project starts with paying attention. We spend time on site, learn how a place is used, and look for what makes it distinct. The result is a collection of play environments that feel rooted in their surroundings and rewarding to return to.

Meet Sean

Real Life is led by artist and designer Sean Procyk. With a background spanning architecture, sculptural fabrication and landscape construction, Sean approaches play as a design methodology and a lens for understanding how people inhabit space.

Over the past decade, he has led public projects across North America, working across design development, fabrication and on-site construction. As a certified playground safety inspector, he brings a detailed understanding of how safety standards, material choices and long-term use shape what gets built and how it holds up.

Sean is drawn to spaces that reveal themselves over time. He develops environments that reward curiosity, invite return and remain genuinely playful long after they're built.

What We Believe

Foundations for how we design and collaborate

Open-ended play

Spaces are designed to support many kinds of use, with room for imagination, exploration, and change over time. We’re interested in environments that don’t reveal everything at once, but continue to offer new possibilities the more they’re used.

Building with care

Each project is developed with attention to safety standards, materials, and long-term performance in public settings. The goal is to create work that holds up physically, while still feeling considered and engaging years after it’s built.

Responsive to place

Design decisions grow out of the specific conditions of a site, including landscape, movement patterns, and how people already gather there. This approach helps ensure that each space feels connected to its surroundings rather than imposed on them.

Access at every level

Accessibility informs the work from the outset, shaping how spaces are experienced physically, cognitively, and sensorially. We consider a wide range of users so that play remains available, meaningful, and comfortable for as many people as possible.

Working together

Projects are shaped through ongoing dialogue with clients, collaborators, and the people who will use the space. This process allows different perspectives to influence the outcome, resulting in spaces that feel shared and well understood.

Playgrounds designed with intention, built for life