When the Museum of Contemporary Art decided to rethink its education space, it wanted to create something outside the box.

That turned out to be a bubble.

Ten giant, white resin bubbles actually, arranged on circular pads of synthetic turf that kids can wiggle through, climb over and slide on. Whatever they want, really.

It’s not your typical McDonald’s Playland decked out in bright colors and with Hamburglers standing sentry. And it’s definitely not the toymaker play spaces that hawk their brands to kids at shopping malls.

Designed by architect Paul Andersen, the MCA’s Bubble Garden is stark and sleek. It looks more like the modern art installations that pop up from time to time in the MCA’s adult play rooms (which adults like to refer to as “galleries”).

The point, museum program director Sarah Baie said, is to break away from the kid programming that simply tried to explain the meaning behind the MCA’s complicated exhibits, the routine method for education efforts.

Instead kids get to be a part of the creative process. The Bubble Garden is pretty much anything you want it to be — little round houses, giant golf balls. Children build the final product from their own ideas, kind of the way artists work.

“This isn’t about art; it is art,” Baie said.

The Bubble Garden, which occupies an indoor room in MCA’s third-floor Fox Family Idea Box, opens Saturday and will be available during regular museum hours.

Expect it to reach its artistic highs on the first Saturday of each month, when the museum drops its admission price to one cent.

Ray Mark Rinaldi

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To find out more

The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver is at 1485 Delgany St.

Information: mcadenver.org or 303-298-7554