17.08.2011 - Ausgabe: 4/2011

The garden for movement and play

by Dirk Schelhorn, landscape architect; playground planner, childhood researcher

The basic idea to include a playing area on the BuGa exhibition site was initiated by the youth council of the City of Koblenz and was implemented with the help of young people. The fundamental requirement was sustainability to provide children and youngsters from the region with their own open space including a variety of different recreation areas and with special focus on "experimental exercise opportunities".

During the construction work, the population of the surrounding residential areas were able to see what was going on. In different building activities youngsters helped to lay play surfaces and had great fun assembling playground equipment.

The following list of basic requirements were created together:
Adventure: to let of steam, test the limits, uniqueness
Togetherness: to meet each other, to sit together, to experience things together
Nature: much nature available, integration of nature in play, nature as a playground, natural disorder as inspiration.

Ideas / Realisation

In this way the idea of an exercise garden with opposites to be experienced through ones own actions was created:
Natural - shaped; light - dark; open - dense; near - far; above - below; active - passive, slow - fast; now - later; white - black; art - nature; easy - hard; alone - together; spontaneous - planned; smooth - rough; upHolding - underStanding.

The concept from Schelhorn landscape architects fulfilled the requirement to develop a natural, landscaped area as a playground, a garden for climbing, running, resting, meeting; but also a play garden for personal experiments, so-called places to try things.

Play islands with different focus points were created in a rhythm which provokes visitors to explore not only the immediate area, but also to discover their own talents and to explore their own personal world of movement.

Discoveries can be made along the way from the swinging world, on a peak with different levels of difficulty, to the trampoline island, through the grasslands and bushes the turning point with different carousels.

These worlds are linked from a content point of view.
 The up and down on a swing opens new perspectives, above all, experiences together with others
 On the trampolines, players jump up to see over the grasslands and watch the rhythm of swinging friends while inventing new rules
 The carousel world in a landscape hollow must be discovered, both large and small personal experiences together open endless opportunities.

The heart of the experiment is the endless climbing world. Depending on capability and courage, the climbing wall topic has been further developed into a climbing room. Natural climbing boulders up to three metres in height have been integrated in an exactly determined arrangement. Different materials and specially created objects have been developed into a space-encompassing route more than 100 m long. Every handhold, step and twist of the body is an experiment, a contention with your own courage and capabilities.

 The endless climbing world demands strength, durability, social competence, fun and the desire to discover or experience something new every metre of the way. All paths are open to players in a three-dimensional, space-encompassing way.

The philosophy of the garden has also been given an additional, exciting dimension: The paths above, the Heavenly Ways.
More than 100 metres in length, with corrugated pathways and winding through the landscape, these paths straddle the exercise worlds and provide quiet places in two gigantic tree houses. Sometimes the paths are suspended above the grasslands, sometimes they climb to more than 3 metres. The tree houses are even partly accessible to children's pushchairs and wheelchairs. Nobody should be excluded. Two different slides provoke children to discover new ways of getting back to the top.

But not only experiences of movement and how to create your own potential for suspense can be learnt in this "Garden". Islands of quietness, places and sensual areas to linger and stay, have been included throughout.

An old barn has been turned into a small restaurant and classroom. The concept of a landscape for intense play activities will provide people from the surrounding city areas with a first class place to visit, even after the end of the federal horticultural show.

In this context, the "Arrival" has also been made into a special feature to be experienced. Two entry areas as simple, free space form a buffer, a sensuous transferral between leaving home and arriving in this wonderful world of play.

Conclusion

It is the idea of evolving the space which makes personal evolvement possible at all. The playing garden as space for opportunity.
In order to strengthen the natural aspect, a large number of trees were retained while at the same time, others were newly integrated. The principle of a fringed forest is a partial result.

The individual play possibilities correspond to a fusion with the area and not the classic principle of furnishing or equipping it.

Basically, the path system is limited to the given axis at the edge of the woods to the south. To the north, only one access path was created. The suspended wooden pathway is part of the space aspect, but is mainly a place to play and provides some additional possibilities for disabled people with limited mobility as a special approach to integration of wheelchair users.

Possible activities from west to east are not only subject to the rhythm of a more open to a more closed landscape. Supplementing each other in a rhythmic way is mobile equipment providing:

 experimental forms of movement ( trampoline )
 with provoked, swinging movements ( swings )
 or with different degrees of circular movement (turntable, carousel, flywheel).

Landscapes of the same name were created for the objects / focus points of the play worlds in order to keep the idea behind the garden in flow. In this sense, all visitors can be human in the deepest meaning of the word - homo ludens - playing man.

General data:
Schelhorn won the competition for this project
Processing of all phases
Project supervision BUGA: Ms Straubenmüller
Manufacturing costs approx. 1.000.000,00 €
Playground equipment: Emsland-Kinderland playground equipment; tree houses / climbing room: Kuckuck Company