Transforming Playscapes
The Blue Whale in Gothenburg, Monstrum. Image: Monstrum
Inside the Blue Whale, Monstrum. Image: Monstrum
Tumbling Playground Den, Erect Architecture + LUC Image: LUC
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Splash pads, springies, trim trails, mugas and concrete ping pong. Liz King explores how, across Cambridge, play areas are being renovated with new equipment and layouts - changing the recreational landscape of the City. Goodbye to the tired-looking swings and paint-chipped see-saws. Welcome to a brightly coloured world of pirate galleons, skater landscapes and interactive water play in the city’s parks. Over the past few years, many of the city’s major play spaces have been overhauled, including Jesus Green, Kings Hedges and Romsey Rec. This summer, the opening of three water adventure ‘splash pads’ has boosted the city’s outdoor play options, and with more improvement projects currently in the pipeline for Coleridge Rec., Lammas Land and Cherry Hinton Park, it seems that Cambridge is the place for toddlers and children to hang out. In the larger playgrounds, where there is a range of equipment and a sculpted ground plane, these play facilities are thoroughly enjoyed by a significant part of the local population. They act as a locus for parents and carers to meet and share experiences, as well as providing a safe learning and exploration landscape for children to develop skills or just let off steam. The smaller play ’pockets’ dotted around new developments, however, sometimes appear under-used, with one or two isolated and stark bits of equipment, fenced off from the surrounding area looking more like urban clutter than vital opportunities for creative play.
Parks and open spaces make up a sizeable and valuable part of the urban environment in Cambridge. Taking an urban density of 50 dwellings per hectare, applying the Cambridge City Council’s Open Space and Recreation Standards (Appendix I of the Draft Local Plan 2014), would equate to roughly 40% of the area of new developments being provided as informal open space and play areas facilities. The Local Plan also includes guidance on play space typologies, age appropriate provision and maximum catchment areas. LAPS, LEAPS and NEAPS These acronyms, written into the draft Local Plan, have become the bywords for open space and play provision for children – each to be of a minimum size and with a certain acceptable type of age appropriate equipment. The smallest category, the Local Area for Play and informal recreation (LAP) is minimum 100m2 with a catchment area of 60m radius. The largest category, the Neighbourhood Equipped Area for Play and informal recreation (NEAP), is minimum 1,000m2 with a catchment area of 600m radius. The effect of this categorised division of types of play space has led to a proliferation of devolved, piecemeal play areas. The typology definitions provided in the current Local Plan emphasise the need for all three categories of space to have play equipment AND landscaping. A number of companies provide a complete service of S106-compliant playgrounds from design and manufacture to installation. Their