YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
The egapark, a 36-hectare garden, plant and leisure paradise, is one of the most popular tourist facilities in Thuringia and will be one of the exhibition areas of the Federal Horticultural Show in 2021. The egapark combines artistic garden design with the architectural monuments of the 1960s and 1970s of the GDR (German Democratic Republic) modernism. Both the exhibition halls, the rotunda, the pavilions on the large lawn, the reception building as well as the historic furniture provide the park ensemble with the charm of iga 61 (the first International Horticultural Exhibition). It is a lively combination of tradition and modernity, a unique garden park with more than half a million visitors a year. As one of the venues of the Erfurt 2021 Federal Horticultural Show, the spacious and visionary park designed by Reinhold Lingner, will additionally be provided with a future-oriented redesign in many areas, including new tourist offers and even more adventure offers for visitors.
The egapark is more than just a garden experience, it provides families with leisure activities for all the senses. However, a unique play and activity area of 35,000 sqm is waiting to be discovered by the children. The playground in egapark was designed and built in the 1970s. At that time it was one of the most modern, representative and beautiful playgrounds in the former German Democratic Republic. Later, in the 1990s, the entire playground complex with its graduated water paddling pool was completely modernised and redesigned.
However, the playground design was already special in its original version with rope climbing pyramids, a large chess area, climbing elephants, extensive sand areas for digging and lots of space where children could frolic around. Various changing elements made this place stand out from the broad mass of play areas. In the course of time, the playground equipment was repeatedly exchanged or new devices were integrated. A homogeneous design was thus no longer feasible. When the new development strategy for the egapark was discussed, the playground, too, should be given a new perspective as a future part of the green experience trail. With 35,000 sqm, the playground is the largest and most beautiful playground in Thuringia and still the first place to go for visitors of egapark.
The playground turns into a garden adventure world
The task was to find a new orientation for the playground which addresses the development goal of the egapark in the years to come. So it should be expanded into a green experience and competence centre with new offers that would give the historical park a new perspective for the coming decades. In addition to various horticultural topics, such as the expansion of various facilities in connection with the topic of climate change, the new Danakil Desert facility and the Jungle House as a new tourist attraction and functional park centre were built and the play and adventure world was redesigned.
The concept presented by the landscape architects Rehwaldt, based on a garden realm, according to which Erfurt's horticultural history was integrated directly into the playground design, finally won the competition.
Erfurt stands for topics such as horticulture, plant cultivation and seed trade like no other city in Germany. The woad brought Erfurt wealth and made the city on the Via Regia an important trading centre in the Middle Ages. The iga 61, today's egapark, and the German Horticultural Museum located in the Cyriaksburg Castle in the park are part of this tradition. The approach of Rehwaldt's landscape architects was to focus both education and fun when designing the playground.
So the planners' motto was: playgrounds are places of education. Children and young people should learn about many different aspects through play. However, the garden realm provides children with offers that include a broad edutainment character. The spatial framework of the play and adventure world is based on four fundamental aspects. On the one hand, the historical buildings are preserved but made accessible again which enables the visitors to experience them. The original open meadow area in the centre of the complex will be restored as an open area that can be used in many different ways. The existing children's farm and the school garden offer further possibilities in the immediate vicinity of the garden realm.
Erfurt's special horticultural history is reflected in nine playable thematic rooms which are arranged in a row. Both children, young people and also adults should "play" in an entertaining way the important "gardening history" of Erfurt as well as the so-called gardening year with its different aspects.
The topics are:
o Via Regia - change and trade
o Seedings - pull and grow
o Splash - splash and pour
o Fruit and vegetables - pick and bend
o Terrace - play and sail
o Farm - gardening and coupling
o Fruit cuisine - prepare and eat
o Green centre - resting and rusting
o Nature trail
The playground equipment was manufactured with sustainable wood by the company Werkform GmbH from the German Ore Mountains. The challenge was that due to its individual production it was impossible to draw on experience gained from other similar projects. Construction was carried out in two phases: in 2016 and 2020.
The completely refurbished playground is a colourful world for children full of vegetables, such as the fruit swings, the strange figures in the sand, the strawberry cactus slide, huge wooden watering cans for pumping, a water ride, dahlia carousel or the bean bouncy cushion. Since 2016, children have been digging, climbing and sliding a lot at this place. For the 2021 Federal Horticultural Show, there will be even more fun because further play areas have been added. A total of 29 individually designed play structures are spread across the spacious green area. Erfurt's rich horticultural tradition was the inspiration for the design, and the play equipment was named after particular varieties that originated in Erfurt.
Elements of the previous playground that were worth preserving, such as the rope climbing pyramids, the paddling pool, the climbing rock and historical fixtures such as the elephants or the stone face, were integrated into the new design.
Being the main users of this area, the children were also involved in the planning process. So the BUGA Children's Workshop was held for the first time as part of the BUGA preparations.
Children became interested in the BUGA workshop through direct contact and information provided at schools as well as through press releases and on the internet. Almost 60 children from Erfurt and the surrounding areas came to get to know the winning design of the ideas’ competition, to discuss it and to develop their own suggestions. They should help to evaluate the concept idea from the user's point of view. In the second phase, the participants of the children's workshop were motivated to develop their own ideas for themes and play areas to be included into the later planning and implementation process.
According to the ideas of the creative minds of the Saxon planning office, traditional Erfurt fruit and vegetable varieties such as the cauliflower "Erfurter Zwerg", the Erfurt August cherry, the radish "Roter Riese" or a strawberry cactus will serve as a design motif for the future playground equipment.
All designs created in the BUGA Children's Workshop were collected, documented and evaluated. Two further creative competitions for the design of the plant chess and the Via Regia for the new play and adventure world were launched.
The green experience trail
However, the garden realm should not only be a playground. It should be part of a new project, namely the green experience trail. The aim was to offer even more employment opportunities and also to achieve a repetition effect among the visitors in order to be able to increase the frequency of visits.
On the green experience trail, visitors of all age groups can explore nature with all their senses, acquire knowledge as a shared experience through play. The garden realm, the largest playground in Thuringia, is the starting point.
The egapark invites its visitors to edutainment in the green, to a combination of experiences and knowledge transfer in an entertaining way. The tour starts at the main entrance on the former Via Regia and leads directly to the garden realm station, the children’s play area.
Then the tour continues to the Danakil Desert and Jungle House. There, the visitor can explore the strategies of water and how flora and fauna adapt to water scarcity or abundance. The climate rings and the climate forest in the outdoor area are the next part of the tour and provide the visitors with nature in different climate zones. The tour continues when entering the egapark - German Horticultural Museum adventure access. The "laboratories" set up there serve to provide knowledge and are intended to arouse curiosity to visit the museum.
In the so-called Waldpark, the knowledge forest with the different perspectives of flora and fauna is available for those who are particularly eager to learn. A nesting box sample house settlement shows the needs of the different inhabitants. A life-size bird house can be climbed and serves at the same time as a real nesting place. Audio stations with stories and interesting facts about the trees, information points about mushrooms, rocks or the BIGA 5, the five big animals of Thuringia, are distributed throughout the forest park. All activity points combine both aspects, fun and learning. Further information and little games are available via QR code.
Facts and figures
Green experience tour within the Garden Realm playground and knowledge forest
Financial investment: – 1,75 million euros
thereof subsidies for the amount of 1,42 million euros
