Exhibitors
SHOW GARDENS | WATER GARDENS | SMALL GARDENS | CONCEPTUAL GARDENS
INSPIRING SPACES | WINDOWBOXES & HANGING BASKETS
PLANTS | GROWING & SHOWING MARQUEE | MARKET PLACE
Show gardens
Groundwork West London
Playscape
Designers: Adam White and Andree Davies (Groundwork West London)
Sponsors: Groundwork, Play England
Contractor: Dave Wood (Visible Changes)
Playscape sits somewhere between the traditional playground design and the play value of building snowmen or climbing up trees. Forget swings and roundabouts, this innovative garden design rejects preconceived notions of a playground in favour of a more natural approach to play. Remember how a fallen tree trunk could provide hours of entertainment, a sprinkling of snow endless fun?
Playscape returns to these simple pleasures, providing a garden for all ages that encourages engagement with natural surroundings and taking acceptable levels of risk. Plants can be designed into many different types of play settings, but they can also extend the range of play activity such as collecting plant parts, climbing and playing in trees, hide-and-seek games, and general exploration. Together with soil, sand and water, plants provide manipulative settings that are quite different from the static, unchangeable character of fixed play equipment.
The main structures with the Playscape garden include the landform itself, sculpted to make a series of inviting smaller spaces and tunnels to give the space play value. A climbing structure comprising poles and nets, with play opportunities for all ages, from toddlers to teenagers to grandparents, are nestled within two large turf-covered earth mounds. A water structure that moves water uphill sits against the larger mound, and a series of climbing boulders, for sitting on, jumping off, or making a camp around are scattered through the space.
Hard materials include recycled-timber retaining walls, timber walkways with an innovative grip system, sand and wood paths, large natural boulders for informal places to sit down and also for play. The planting is planting for play, the planting scheme designed to have a function including sensory variety, seasonal interest, culinary usage, drought tolerance, erosion control, wildlife enhancement and practical needs such as plants for shade and screening. Planting includes chestnut trees for conkers, daisy lawns for making daisy chains, buttercups and dandelions for dandelion clocks. Bamboo and willow create a maze.
The entire Playscape project is lined up to be relocated to its final home, a rundown play space in the London Borough of Ealing. Along with contractors Visible Changes Landscapes, Playscape is also using the services of its own Groundwork West London Green Team. The idea behind the Green Team is to provide long-term unemployed people with the opportunity to receive training to carry out regeneration projects through practical landscaping in their local area.
Designer Adam White has worked for the environmental charity Groundwork for the past nine years and for the last two years has been the Principal Landscape Architect with Groundwork West London, as well as a Civic Trust Green Flag Judge awarding Green Flag status to deserving green spaces. Over the past 12 months, Adam has pioneered the Playscape approach to play area design. The Playscape story began with a scribble on a beer mat and moved swiftly on to some fairly challenging meetings, which sought to confront ingrained perceptions of play. Sketches, plasticine models, sections, elevations and 3D CAD models followed, including the creation of a life-size layout in the Groundwork West London car park. Groundwork attended a Play England round-table discussion at Parliament Square in January 2007 and gained the support, from among others, Baroness Estelle Morris and Frank Dobson MP.