Part of the original design for the Wynyard Playspace, but only recently installed with additional funding, the ‘kelp forest’ adds vertical scale to the space and heightens the sea-floor concept. Designed to express underwater movement and flow, the vivid green structures offer the opportunity for interactive shadow play – patterns in the sand cast can be moved by swivelling the base.
The steel and fabric structures were fabricated by Cicada.
Installed on a future development site the playspace was designed and built for a very modest budget. One of the design strategies to get maximum bang-for-buck was to incorporate old waterfront materials such as concrete pontoons and bluestone rip-rap into the space. All new elements were placed on top of the existing slab to avoid any ground works and to enable easy removal and reuse in future.
Health & Safety in action. Womad festival, 2012.
Lack of access to wild places, changes in perceptions of safety (stranger danger), fear of injury and the trend towards digital play in the home have resulted in outdoor play and exploration becoming much less common for children today than it was when I was a kid. Healthy outdoor activity has been replaced with virtual play inside for the majority of urban children, and as a result kids are getting heavier, weaker, less confident. Author Richard Louv calls this ‘nature deficit disorder’ (Last Child in the Woods, 2009)
Children are not learning about the natural world, they are not connected to nature, seasons, growth and decay. And they are not taking small physical risks and challenges that help them learn. The situation is really bad in Europe and America, but even with our relatively small cities and low residential densities New Zealand children are losing touch with the natural world.
The New Zealand State of Play Report (2012) explores what play looks like in New Zealand today for 8 – 12 year old children and concludes that it has reached “such a critical point that has to be addressed today, not tomorrow”.
We need to create, or set aside, a range of programmed and non-programmed play spaces that allow children to explore their world through playing together. While communities generally have a playground with equipment of some sort, much less available is public space for play; play landscapes where landform, trees and native plantings provide the background for physical and creative challenges. Natural play spaces don’t need any play equipment as such, just a landscape that is open for play: mown grass paths; areas of long grass; small shelters and enclosures; artwork and sculpture; bridges and tunnels; balancing and jumping logs; trees and native plants for playing amongst; mounds for running and rolling; and sand, soil and water to get messy. These environments leave room for children to develop their cognitive skills as well as their physical confidence.
As designers of community infrastructure we need to make sure that there is some green space that is stimulating, safe and unprogrammed where children can take physical risks, make mistakes and learn about themselves as well as their environment.
thirty kids having an absolute blast with just one plane tree and a muddy bank.
climbing, balancing, swinging, jumping
and learning.
In advance of summer the New Zealand Herald published its annual piece reviewing Auckland-area playgrounds- Swinging into Summer’s Coolest Playgrounds. The article reviews a couple of Isthmus projects – the new playgrounds in Wynyard Quarter and Hobsonville Point Playground. We were chuffed to read that the Wynyard Quarter Playground was the clear favourite amongst the experts aged 8, 9 and 10. From the article:
The structures at Wynyard Quarter are designed to reflect the life beneath the nearby wharf. There are stylised mussel stacks, rock pools and kelp structures, as well as real objects reclaimed from the waterfront during the upgrade over recent years such as heavy wharf timbers.
Wynyard Quarter Playground
On Hobsonville Point:
The playground has a mixture of classic play elements, such as slides and swings, and unique “experiential” creative play structures such as an abstract fort, giant fantail nests and scaled-up seedpods. There is plenty to keep the kids interested – especially if they’re keen on imaginative play.
Hobsonville Point Playground
An initiative of The Designers Institute of New Zealand, The Best Awards is the annual showcase of excellence in graphic, spatial, product and interactive design.
Isthmus are proud to have won two awards in the Spatial category, a Gold for Hobsonville Point Park and a Silver for Te Puru Bridge.
Barry Curtis Park is one of five global projects shortlisted in the Urban Design category of the World Architecture News awards. The award celebrates and promotes the best in international urban design, transport & infrastructure, attracting entries from all over the world.
The jury judged entries on a number of factors including originality, innovation, form and special quality, sustainability and context, but the following two areas carried the most weighting.
1. How the design addressed the key elements of the client brief.
2. Specific examples of how the design: evolved its specific building type, used design and / or materials to enhance the user experience or integrate with its context and / or community.
JUDGES
Martha Schwartz, Director, Martha Schwartz Partners Ltd; Chris Wilkinson, Director, Wilkinson Eyre; Daniel R. Ringelstein, AIA, Director of Urban Design and Planning, SOM; Robbert van Nouhuys, Director, ACLA; Peter Sheard, Senior Associate, Gensler
It’s only been open for a few weeks, but the beach-themed (temporary) playspace already has its own Facebook page, Save The Wynyard Quarter Playground. Recently the press have latched onto the fact that the Isthmus designed playspace is located on ‘Site 13′ of the Wynyard Quarter masterplan; a future development plot………
The project was designed on a limited budget and in a short timeframe with principles of reuse: many elements were reclaimed, such as the concrete pontoons that such line the Jellicoe Street edge. All materials and play elements have been designed to be reused and/or relocated.
It’s great to see that this project has made an such an impression on Aucklanders, but it seems to be quickly turning from a playground into a political football.
