We were approached by this school who wanted to develop a playground area of their school which was in need of upgrading.
And the brief to us was very clear and was essentially as follows:
- The children using it will be principally 3-7 but they will still have older children using it as well
- They have a few ADHD children who will use it and children who are non verbal and require sensory feedback – they don’t wear shoes for example so textured flooring might be good
- They want to have a calm, relaxing space which has a naturalised look and feel to it
- They want the children to “be on a journey which takes you through all of the senses”
- Does not want to be a play space
- It has to be a safe place to explore
- A sensory corridor would be good to have in the design
- Planting would be good too with sensory flowers but not lavender
- Wild grasses, noises in the wind
- Easy maintainable
So we set about coming up with a design as per below and which included the following:
Multi-coloured seating arbour
Playgrass surfacing
Solar sphere water feature
Bespoke sensory timber tunnel pergola with the following in-built features – wind chimes, reflection mirror posts, growing beds with edible plants, sensory light panels
Barefoot sensory path with multiple textures
Sensory mirror and light cubes
Textile weaving panel
Tree bench with sensory tactile backboards
Growing beds with wild plants
Buddy benches and storage
Rustic timber shade canopy over a kitchen area made from natural materials
And the finished end result looked something like this!
