March 2015 – THE DIRT

zorlu1 — Zorlu Center playground / © IJreka

Since its founding nearly 20 years ago, Carve Landscape Architecture in the Netherlands has become one of the most interesting landscape architecture firms creating adventure-filled playgrounds. Their projects are immediately recognizable, with their use of bold colors, architectural forms, and incorporation of challenging obstacles, including steep-looking climbing objects and chutes and slides. Their embrace of strong forms and color and adventurous play makes the typical American playground, which has been made so safe out of the fear of lawsuits, look rather bland and tame in comparison. Their playgrounds are like parkour courses for kids, of all ages. Increasingly international, they’ve moved beyond the Netherlands to create exciting new projects in Turkey and Singapore.

In Istanbul, Turkey, Carve partnered with mutlti-disciplinary design firm WATG last year to create Zorlu Center playground, the largest in Istanbul. The result is a play space like no other, with a purple palette running throughout.

Carve and WATG created zones for different age groups, orchestrating a progression moving from simpler (and safer) zones for younger children to more challenging ones for older children. These zones are inspired by natural landforms, as Carve describes creating “hills, valleys, and mountains.” Using the best biophilic design principles, within the zones, there are both refuges, places where kids can hide out, and also prospects, like a net-filled climbing tower. And to the side of this adventure wonderland is a terrace where parents can socialize while also keeping an eye out.

The entry zone is for the youngest children. At Landezine, Carve explains: “The entrance area has gentle hills to climb on, slide down, and explore. On these hills, play-shapes host numerous elements for the smaller children, like trampolines, spinners, climbing nets, hammocks, and a slide.”

zorlu4 — Zorlu Center playground / © IJreka

At the next stage, the hills become a valley. “Here, a hidden world can be explored: a bridge, giant netting structure, and a family slide, ready to be used by a whole bunch of children at the same time. The site is embraced by a natural landform, keeping children safe in the play area.”

zorlu5 — Zorlu Center playground / © IJreka

And then the valleys become mountains. Rows of walls become opportunities for climbing, running, and sliding. “Together these walls act like a giant coulisse, which changes shape depending from one’s angle. It is an adventure to play here: a labyrinthian system of tunnels, sliding walls, ‘birds nests’ and lookout points and narrow alleys. Once you’re inside the mountain, there are numerous ways to get up to the highest point. The giant slide from the valley-landscape crawls up the hill, connecting both parts of the playground. In a roller-coaster slide of seconds, you’re in the heart of the playground again!”

zorlu2 — Zorlu Center playground / © IJreka

At its height are two towers. The three-story tower, which is only accessible via the mountain range, includes a slide that takes kids back to the center of the playground. And the top of the second, a four-story tower, can only be reached via climbing nets within. What kid wouldn’t want to play here?

zorlu6 — Zorlu Center playground / © IJreka

In Singapore last year, Carve created Interlace, a smaller bright-blue playground, modeled after the OMA-designed apartment blocks where most of the kids in the neighborhood live. “While most playgrounds are a contrast to their surroundings – in color, shape, and activity – the new Interlace playground is the mini-version of the surrounding residences.”

singapore1 — Interlace / Tucky’s Photography

Within the blocks, there are kid-sized spaces that house a maze. “The ‘closed’ facade gives children the thrill of being invisible, while the perforations actually ensure looking both inside and outside. Also, the perforated facades allow for shading and a continuous wind breeze, creating a cool climate inside the boxes, while stretching the borders of the conception of inside-outside.”

singapore2 — Interlace / Tucky’s Photography

And it’s worth highlighting Osdorp Oever, a playground Carve built in Amsterdam in 2013 that features a bright Dutch orange “climbing parkour” set between trees, with four “cocoons,” crossing points in the pathway.

At 15-feet off the ground, these pods are both “lounge hangout and lookout point.”

Check out Carve’s other projects.

park1 — A’Beckett Square / © John Gollings

Typically, pop-up parks tend to be fairly small — just a thousand square feet, if that — but a few noteworthy ones show temporary places can be super-sized, too. In Melbourne, Australia, RMIT University turned a 30,000-square-foot parking lot into a vibrant community space for a game of pick-up basketball or just hanging out. Designed by Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design, A’Beckett Urban Square shows the amazing potential of really any empty urban parking lot. At a cost of $1.2 million Australian dollars ($970,000 U.S.), the park is not cheap, but still less than a more fully-realized, permanent park.

The designers told Landezine RMIT students and local residents can now take advantage of a multi-use sports court set up for basketball and volleyball and surrounded by spectator seating.

park2 — A’Beckett Square / © John Gollings

Around the perimeter, there are ping-pong tables, BBQs, and bike parking. Colors help differentiate the sports zone from the areas designed for hanging out. Throughout, WiFi is available, another draw.

park4 — A’Beckett Square / © John Gollings

To keep the costs down, there aren’t any trees — but the design team bring a sense of green in other ways. One part of the pop-up park has astroturf dotted with planters filled with small trees and bushes.

And along two walls, the university commissioned a work by Melbourne artist Ash Keating meant to evoke an “urban forest and desert landscape.” Two panels of green paint represent the forest, while another red and orange panel, the desert. To not contaminate the environment, Keating used airless spray from “pressurized, paint-filled fire extinguishers.”

park3 — A’Beckett Square / © John Gollings

Peter Elliot Architecture + Urban Design wrote: “Typically ‘pop-ups’ occupy leftover and underutilised spaces through the use of recycled materials and the clever adaption of everyday found objects. They are often gritty spaces that are curated rather than designed. A’Beckett Urban Square was conceived as a piece of urban theatre carved out of the surrounding city. The design approach was purposefully lean, developing upon the idea of a temporary and demountable installation.”

Pop-up parks are also getting bigger in the U.S. though, too. In Washington, D.C., the no-frills but still appealing Half Street Fairgrounds, which is modeled after the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn, New York, and started as a spill-over space for Washington Nationals games, is now home to Truckeroo, a food truck festival and musical events. This space, which also started out as a parking lot, is really just a place to hang out though, without the full range of features that A’Beckett Urban Square has.