This school’s PTA approached us because they had raised quite a significant amount of money over the years and wanted to create a new playground for the children which absolutely had a Wow! factor. Basically, they didn’t want your bog standard play equipment with safety surfacing.
On further discussions with the school and the various project stakeholders, we established that they wanted to promote quite a few themes into their creative play and didn’t want to centre around one dominant feature. So we came up with the idea of dividing their playground (which thankfully is quite big) into various themed zones which had equipment in to promote these various themes. These zones included the following:
Adventure Play Zone – bespoke climbing frame/treehouse with a climbing tube entrance; funhouse rope maze; rope walkway and climbing net with monkey bars; inclined tunnel and fireman’s platform; tangled log climbing feature and artificial grass play surfacing
Cave – we built a hideaway den/cave into an existing grassed bank
Science Garden – this was to demonstrate the movement of water with the children being able to undertake various creative experiments and studies. Water collection tanks and pullies; interactive water channels, additional posts and chutes to fill the tanks from nearby taps; multi-way posts for interactivity; pump box with hand pump; valve post to control water flow using taps at different heights; artificial grass
Nature Zone – wild camp rustic seating around a central fire pit; outdoor cooking area; bug hotel; mini beast examination tables with magnifying glasses; self creation den; living wall tipi with climbers to create the ultimate den; compost wormery and bark chip
Growing Zone – two “bed planters” and a water recycling feature to water them
The school are now looking to expand this whole area with an eco classroom which is solely powered by renewable energy
