080 PLAY SPACES
dominated by a risk reduction mindset. Tis ISO is really significant…It will strongly encourage designers and commissioners to look beyond checklists and more formulaic thinking about safety. It will probably take a few years to have influence, because old habits die hard, but it’s a big deal.’ Gill’s opinion that you can tell a ‘healthy, liveable place’ by the number of children playing freely outdoors is clearly shared by many others, and being made apparent in recent urban landscaping and housing schemes, especially ZCD Architects’ new residential scheme for housing association Catalyst (see case study). But adults have also enjoyed some of the re-appraisals of outdoor space that the pandemic lockdowns encouraged – many of the bars, restaurants and cafes that brought tables and chairs outside have kept them there. And parks seem to have been reactivated as spaces for civic engagement, not only through thoughtful invitations to both adults and kids to explore, rest and play thanks to specific landscaping and furniture (see Cullinan Studios and Mayfields Park case studies) but also through the growing movement for guerrilla gardening and rewilding. You see far more people of all ages relaxing in the sections of long grass and wildflowers that park keepers are strategically leaving for pollenators and plant lovers of all kinds.
CASE STUDY
MARLBOROUGH SPORTS GARDEN
In April 2021 Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST), an environmental and volunteering charity invited architects’ suggestions for a development of Marlborough Sports Garden, re-envisioning a rundown recreation ground as a vital, public hub for sports and outdoor play in Southwark. Cullilnan Studio won the commission, by its imaginative proposal for a building that is ‘as green as possible, carbon neutral and circular economy compliant.’ Currently Marlborough Sports Garden comprises mostly hard landscaping with football pitch, sand court, basketball and netball facilities plus event space, but almost no greenery. Apart from some minor upgrades in 2016, it has had little attention or investment. It is situated off Borough High Street and flanked by two primary schools. Jack Harrison of BOST says the hope was that it could be transformed into an ‘environment where children and young people can find it easier to eat well, exercise more, develop a love for and proficiency in many sports, and establish healthy habits for life.’ The Borough of Southwark awarded £1.125m in CiL funding to progress the scheme.
Much needed – Southwark currently has the highest rate of childhood obesity at Year 6 of any local authority in England. Local consultations revealed a desire for more plants and greenery, eco-friendly structures and buildings with covered seating areas, permanent toilets, indoor studio spaces and a café. Cullinan Studios secured planning permission in September 2021. Intention to create a garden within this hard urban space, give a
sense of ownership to the schools and wider communities that will use it, built it from non-toxic materials, otpimised for daylight and energy eficiency. Taking it one step further by adopting principles of a circular economy, reusing materials sourced locally and designing in a way so as to facilitate easy disassembly and reassembly.
The proposal is for a Gateway Building on Union Street which combines community hub/café, studios, WCs and storage with sheltered outdoor area comprising a climbable structure, with greenery interwoven in the form of planters, and which offers grandstand seating for parents and friends. These seats double up as steps for training circuits, offering a slide back down. The building will have a green roof with solar panels and rainwater recycling system. Edges form warm-up ‘parcour-style’ box seating, with plants that offer shade and screening. The street front presentation will be filled with greenery, with picture windows enticing users inside.
Cullinan Studio is negotiating with local contractors to use leftover and redundant materials throughout, with reclaimed timber for the primary structure and recycled gas pipes for structural columns. With air source heat pumps and MVHR, plus PV and battery power, the building aims for Net Zero.’
Client Transi ankside Open Spaces Trust
Architect Cullinan Studio Appointed 2021 Construction cost £2m Completion Planned for 2024
CASE STUDY FAULKNERBROWNS: BEACON OF LIGHT
Sidney Close in Buckinghamshire is a development of 19 new homes for housing association Catalyst, all for social rent. Situated right next to the A40, ZCD architects took great pains to ensure that cars and their noise intrude minimally on the lives of the residents – not only are they kept off the streets, with each house featuring its own tidy car port, but children have access to a huge communal garden entirely protected and acoustically insulated from the trafic by the arrangement of houses surrounding it.
As the two bedroomed houses are all designated for families, ZCD
was selected in part because of its commitment to and experience of co-designing with children and its wider research into how urban design can prioritise rather than threaten children’s safe play activity. Each house is laid out in an L-shaped plan, around a small private courtyard. A gate leads off every courtyard into the shared garden, but sightlines from large windows within the house prioritise garden views so that children can roam freely while adults keep an eye on them from within the open plan kitchen/dining area, and also from the upstairs bedrooms. Two further short terraces of five houses are placed to the north, but their rear courtyard spaces also have gates onto the shared garden.
The carport feature allows ZCD to meet the planning requirement for each house to have two parking spaces, while keeping trafic clear of the street. Extra car parking spaces are provided along the edge of the site that faces the motorway. By accommodating a carport into the ground floor, ZCD was also able to expand the space taken up by the two first floor bedrooms beyond national space standards. The shared garden, with four houses north and south and three to east and west is laid out with two crossing paths and a few trees. The project was designed by ZCD to stage three, but completed by executive architects Rock Townsend, and though ZCD’s proposed a central sunken SuDS
area crossed by bridges, with play equipment and communal veg or flower beds, this has not yet been realised.
Client Catalyst Client ZCD
Construction cost £4.6m Gross internal floor area 1,679 sq m Completion May 2021 Executive architect Rock Townsend
Structural engineer Webb Yates (IESIS) Main contractor Jarvis
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