Studio Hardie were engaged as play consultants after a design for a new playground at the Canons was rejected by the community. We worked with local families and children needing special support to help deliver their vision for the playground. Through a series of workshops, we trained the children up as play designers covering all aspects of a project, from innovation, concept, constraints and opportunities, material exploration and site plans.
Though the project had a heritage base, we realised that the community and imagination of the children was a stronger resource. The children evolved designs and responses to the core heritage, in particular a dovecote dating from the medieval period. We helped develop their ideas into a scheme, whilst retaining many of their quirky interpretations.
One of the main pieces of equipment was derived from a combination of playing with paper as a material and the way the children scrumpled up their drawings. We designed the scrumpled paper climbing structure directly from their experiments.
The outcome is a very unique set of equipment with new experiences, a huge pride in the community and long term investment and engagement for the care of the space from the community.
