A playful network of large pipes containing walkways and bridges wraps around this children's community centre in Beijing by local practice We Architech Anonymous (WAA), housed in a series of refurbished 1970s industrial buildings.
The Playscape, which has been shortlisted in the landscape project category of Dezeen Awards 2021, was designed for a children's healthcare provider that specialises in exploration and play, and created as a "tool for sensory learning".
The playground was built by WAA and encompasses a group of industrial buildings
A cluster of former grain warehouses form the basis for the project, with the courtyard in their centre transformed into an undulating, steel-framed landscape that creates a series of new interactions among the existing buildings. "Beijing is a city where many children do not have access to an adequate-sized outdoor space within their close locale," said the WAA. "Children are often drawn to risk, creating a feedback loop of design refinement and safety concerns...we allowed a managed element of risk, where children can learn to be more confident to tackle problems independently."
The undulating floors reach the building roof tops and include built-in trampolines
Cut-outs revealing bright yellow play-spaces, built-in trampolines and a series of mounds that can be scaled to access the roofs of the original warehouses animate this central landscape, which also acts to stitch together the previously disconnec...