The National Botanic Garden of Wales was looking to upgrade its existing play facility, which had become worn and non-economical to keep repairing. The Garden also wished to expand the current playground site to incorporate new, exciting play equipment.
The aspiration of the new play area was for it to be a creatively and sensitively designed area catering for able bodied children, disabled children and toddlers. The playground also needed to fit in with its natural surroundings by incorporating the woodland growing around the area.
The bespoke play area has a botanical theme and uses the existing willow maze and timber pirate ship which is complemented by Sutcliffe Play’s Mission range.
Designed for older juniors, Mission offers testing, high energy, physical play opportunities that focus on climbing, traversing, and descending in unique ways. Intended to keep children interested for extended playing time, Mission can help them keep active and fit.
Mission Target, which is central to the design, consists of a maze of random platforms at different heights. Compact in design, it incorporates exhilarating curved banister rails, spin pole and challenging V net climber.
In keeping with the botanical theme of the play area, a Flower springie and Toddlerzone Daisy unit also feature. Toddlerzone Daisy, for toddlers and young children, reflects a natural theme with gently waving panels, a ‘natural colour palette’ and themes and motifs that reflect the natural world. There is also a binocular rail for spying on wildlife, a circular finger maze and a pathway panel, ‘ladybird visiting the flowers’, adding play on a micro level.
The unit has been designed to maximise activities, utilising space under the decks and on the posts, while minimising surfacing requirements. The space under the deck utilises multi-level play opportunities by incorporating a crawling tunnel and creates an additional play feature at ground level.
