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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AOTEAROA
Playground planet
Waterview Playground began as an award-winning collaborative
process between the designers and the local children.
Text by Kathleen Kinney Images from Boffa Miskell and Playground Centre
Close your eyes an d imagine that you’ve been taken to
a planet full of playgrounds – any kind of playground.
Imagine that you’re on holiday there for a whole week.
What would you do each day, and why?
That was the question asked during a series of
interactive consultation and design workshops with
children from Waterview Primary School.
The design team, including Alasdair Rigby, Larissa
Moyle and Caroline Patton of Boffa Miskell collated
their responses and used them as drivers for the
concept of the Waterview Playground.
“There were strong themes of water play, risk taking
and edible landscapes as well as the usual elements
of slides, swings and roundabouts,” says landscape
architect Al Rigby. “Some ideas were so creative they
proved a real challenge to translate into buildable
structures but that was the fun of it!”
Among the more memorable requests were: “…a
food park – eat anything you want for free” and “…all
our favourite famous people come meet us and play.”