YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
A playground must have a lot to offer in a large housing estate with some thousand inhabitants. It should look inviting, stimulate children’s imagination, provide fun, excitement and challenges and thus appeal to all age groups. The play concept should increase the recognition factor of the housing estate, be a meeting place for all residents of the large housing estate and offer a wide range of different play opportunities for young and old alike. And the play opportunities have to be inclusive these days.
Playgrounds also serve a variety of social purposes in a housing estate in the centre of Berlin. These play opportunities accompany the residents over a period of more than two decades and children throughout their childhood. Every stage of development should be taken into account.
The comprehensive redevelopment of the large housing estate in Berlin-Kreuzberg, which was built in the early 1960s and is located almost exactly in the geographical centre of Berlin, was completed in 2020. The client Deutsche Wohnen and the planning offices involved are striving to improve the quality of life for all in line with sustainability criteria. This holds especially true for the families living there through the integration of contemporary and attractive play opportunities.
The housing estate, whose name “Spring-Siedlung” points to the financial support provided by the U.S. in the early 1960s, features 8-storey mid-rise dwellings typical of that time with a high proportion of green spaces. This “detached building development”, in contrast to the attached perimeter block development otherwise common in Berlin, is a rare sight in the centre of Berlin and leads to a park-like green space, which opens up to the surrounding urban space.
The open space concept implemented by hochC landscape architects between 2018 and 2020 on behalf of Deutsche Wohnen bears subtle reference to the characteristics of the time of its creation. Typical contemporary design motifs of buildings and open space, such as the bright colours of balconies and floor coverings, were incorporated into the new design concept and developed into a sustainable and modern open space design.
Combined playgrounds
hochC landscape architects have combined five of the playgrounds in the Springsiedlung that were no longer suitable for use by children in recent years into two central playgrounds. One of the purposes of the combined playgrounds is to provide new places for residents to meet and to create places for young and old to get together, spend time together and interact. The playgrounds are surrounded by lavish green spaces, flowering meadows and landscaped shrubbery.
With the help of attractive playground equipment, another residential playground was redesigned into a “meadow playground”, which owes its name to the surrounding flowering meadows. Play opportunities along the way and low-threshold balance equipment for young and old are to show at many other places in the Springsiedlung housing estate that not only explicit playground attractions are important. “Informal” exercise and activity areas should also stimulate the senses in a playful way and encourage users to do some individual fitness training. Sometimes the journey is also the reward.
Neighbourhood playground
In the centre of the housing estate there is the “neighbourhood playground”, which harmoniously adjoins an existing path winding through a birch grove. The playground features geometric play towers with various attached slides and a bridge spanning a path, a net tunnel, swings, an inclusive sand construction site, a bridge with sensory showers, a balancing trail, an inclusive play area and much more.
The geometrical shapes of the play towers harmonize with the landscape design of the entire complex, as does the colour scheme. The play value is very challenging.
The play towers are interconnected and provide exciting opportunities for emotional play such as narrowness and expanse as well as changing play of colours thanks to coloured plexiglass panes that allow colourful light to enter the interior of the play towers. There are ascents with very different levels of difficulty, up to large and small wooden ascent rings with various coverings fitted into the play system. They are designed to stimulate the senses and promote coordination. The highlights are the large curved tube slide and the rope net tunnel spanning the path.
A high curved tube slide adds to the play value and the emotional aspect of the sliding experience, because the slide exit is not visible. Children often refer to this as “sliding in the dark”. The 360° curved slide gives children a thrill ride as their bodies are pressed against the outer curve radius.
The rope net tunnel spanning the path promotes heights experience and coordination. To cross it, you have to crawl through in a stooped and coordinated manner. You can directly experience the height as you are clearly above the heads of the others.
Children with physical disabilities can also engage in the play activities, e.g. they can experience the use of the rope net tunnel and actively use playground equipment such as the wheelchair platform with a “mirror maze”, the sand play area with its transfer platforms at different heights, and of course the nest basket swing which can be used with the help from others. A “pump track” was built around the sand play area to accommodate wheelchair users. This is a bypass that is suitable for roller sports, but is actually more of an “off-road trail” and thus presents challenges in terms of use. Of course, it is not only suitable for wheelchairs, but also for scooters, Bobby Cars, walking frames, etc.
Rock playground
Another play area, the “rock playground”, fits into the design, but it offers an additional water feature in the form of a water pump with hygiene flushing, a rockscape with caves made of large limestone blocks, as well as via ferratas and climbing walls. A “water stone” with its furrows and grooves, characteristically shaped by nature, helps city kids explore and connect with nature. Wobbling playable rings in different sizes add to the stimulative and challenging nature of the second playground and help to improve coordination.
Play activities for everyone
The playgrounds are inclusive (in accordance with a probably modified DIN TR 18 034-2 Playgrounds and outdoor play areas, the Matrix).
When designing these facilities, care was taken to ensure that the play elements are varied and multifaceted and that their design does not give away their numerous play functions at first glance. The users must therefore “seize” and “explore” the play facilities in order to be able to advance into all areas. At the same time, the playgrounds are deliberately designed to ensure that not all elements are accessible to every child and every age group, so that enough new challenges remain for children’s further development. Play elements for everyone were combined into inclusive play areas by providing opportunities to promote the sensory perceptions of seeing (e.g. colour discs and distorting mirrors), hearing (e.g. talk tubes), touching (e.g. a wide variety of floor and handrail coverings), feeling (e.g. sensory showers and water), tasting and smelling (by creating “pick and eat gardens” right next to the playground).
In addition to “pick and eat gardens” next to the playground, the housing estate also features other edible fruits from perennials and shrubs growing close to the houses, which children can get to know “in real life”. The use of fragrant, insect-friendly plants also adds to environmental education, as children can thus experience at an early age the diversity of a species-rich flora and fauna.
The physical activity aspect is fully covered by the requirements for coordination (e.g. different ascents to different heights), speed (e.g. slides) and heights experience (e.g. slides and rope net tunnels spanning the path).
The playgrounds serve as meeting places for children and cover the social aspects in the requirements for inclusion by promoting communication and social interaction (e.g. through the different seating and play areas), self-perception (e.g. through the increasing levels of difficulty of the ascents), group play and individual play as well as by providing opportunities to meet other people, as the playground complex is designed as a central meeting place within the residential area. All playgrounds were designed and developed in cooperation with Uli Paulig and built by merry go round.
By adding tables and benches to the playgrounds, they are also valuable public communal areas for recreation, which are frequently used. The play and recreation areas are bordered by lavish perennial and shrub areas. For the first time, the Springsiedlung housing estate boasts lush bee pastures and flower meadows, which are only mowed once or twice a year and stand out from the playable lawn like near-natural islands.
The open space concept as a whole was developed with the aim of creating a sustainable and “productive” housing estate and at the same time picking up on the design language of the 1960s: For instance, the historic lamp posts were restored and reinstalled, a very precautionary approach was taken to the trees and sustainable materials were chosen.
Urban living requirements were considered in the context of climate change adaptation and environmental protection issues:
In addition to a large number of bicycle parking spaces and a new residential street, electric car sharing, parking and charging stations are to lead the way for future traffic development. High-quality bicycle shelters based on the overall design concept protect cycles from the weather and provide a secure area to lock up bikes.
In the course of the energy-efficient redevelopment and the partial incorporation of green roofs in the housing estate, it has been possible to drain the green roofs in parts by providing infiltration swales.
Particularly in a city like Berlin, the conservation of natural resources and biodiversity play an increasingly important role in the protection of the environment to safeguard the future against the background of globally advancing urbanisation. The sustainably redeveloped Springsiedlung housing estate with its innovative playgrounds is to serve as a good example of this.
hochC podcast
A few months ago, the hochC landscape architects’ office launched its “Let’s Talk Landscape” podcast (new episodes every other Thursday), which covers various issues and challenges in landscape design and is aimed at the large expert community. A podcast episode on innovative and sustainable play opportunities in urban settings has recently been released. You can listen to the green “Let’s Talk Landscape” podcast by hochC on Spotify and all common podcatchers (in German): https://open.spotify.com/show/0clZ35C8fpQbiwwMDFMxou
