Lay citizens, high school students, and professionals were involved in a project to plan, design, and construct three innovative playgrounds in the inner-city of Brockton, Massachusetts. Using the citizen participation process, two playgrounds designed innovative uses of donated materials such as old tires, discarded telephone poles, and conduit pipe were planned and completed. How the conception of the charrette process was implemented is described in separate accounts of each of the three charrettes. In order to provide some guide to communities, organizations, or institutions who may be interested in attempting a similar experiment in building playgrounds using citizen participation, a brief, outlined "how-to" manual is included. (Photographs may reproduce poorly.) (Author/MLF)