Kilburne Grange Adventure Playground, Erect Architecture, Camden London, 2010

Given the enviable site of an old Victorian arboretum, it was natural that the story of this playscape be about trees...

 

 

 

"It is a dense structure, which plays with character of trees...sets up a relationship with adjacent  school building and vantage points (into park). There are light and open, small and cosy, fast and slow spaces of different timber materialities."

Throughout the project, erectarchitecture ran workshops exploring the idea of  'what is adventure?'  " During the first session the children where asked to state their idea of adventure on signs, which were permanently fixed in on site in the park, announcing the project to the wider community. Free-running workshops with Parkour Generations explored ‘Movement as Adventure’ and controlled risk taking. ‘Nature as Adventure’ introduced the children to playing with nature and natural materials but also to making spatial propositions. ‘Design as Adventure’ taught the children about structural principles, which they tested on simple large scale models afterwards making propositions for playground structures."

I think this design is particularly brilliant at incorporating the sense of risk, and encouraging risk-taking (love that canted log rope-walk), within a 'safe' structure.  Notice also the use of doors as a motif (who doesn't want to open a door into a secret land!)  and in the best tradition of repurposed materials on the adventure playground.