birth_place image_size birth_date article_title name
sheffield , england -lrb- if image is smaller than 250px -rrb- 13 april 1942 eric mcmillan
 eric mcmillan
eric mcmillan

eric mcmillan , -lrb- born in sheffield , england , in 1942 -rrb- is a canadian designer who began his career designing exhibitions .
by an extraordinary opportunity in 1972 , he started designing play areas and elements that encouraged children to learn through play .
the concepts were composed of a great variety of materials .
he has been referred to as `` the father of soft play '' .
in 1968 he moved from the canadian government exhibition commission in ottawa to toronto to join the design team planning ontario place .
when ontario place opened in 1971 the section of the exhibition he had designed called `` explosions '' was the most successful exhibit in that first season .
in consequence of this success he was appointed chief designer for the whole project .
the following year -lrb- 1972 -rrb- saw the opening of the `` children 's village '' land play area and from that project grew his reputation as a designer of children 's play attractions .
the opening of the `` water play '' area in 1973 secured that reputation .
his work introduced ideas like the ball crawl -lrb- ball pit -rrb- , net climb , punch bag forest , birdie glide , roller slide , cave crawl , together toys , foam swamp , water bicycle cannons , balancing buoys , rubber band bounce , and a whole range of interactive play elements .
in 1975 together with partners rosemarie duell and len rydahl he formed a design partnership and went on to design play attractions around the world .
`` captain kid 's '' at seaworld of ohio was the first project built in the u.s. in 1975 .
his list of projects include : `` whale of a time world '' san vallejo , california 1979 ; `` sesame place '' , langhorne , pennsylvania 1980 ; `` parc de la villette '' paris , france 1984 ; `` space science park '' -lrb- united states space camp -rrb- huntsville , alabama 1984 ; `` children 's museum waterfront attraction '' , boston , massachusetts 1987 ; `` founders park '' nelson , new zealand , 1987 ; `` eureka ! ''
halifax england , 1988 ; and many other projects including work at world expos ' 1967 , 1976 , 1984 , 1986 .
time magazine once described him as `` the next walt disney . ''
