Garden City Playscape

setting a new standard in playground design

Richmond, BC

Role
Prime Consultant
Landscape Architect
Services
Landscape Architecture
Nature-based Design
Visioning
Client
City of Richmond
Collaborators
Pod Design

Garden City Play Environment is a 1.3 acre site located in the centre of Richmond, next to several schools, a pond, an arboretum and existing forest. With rapid population growth in the area, it was essential to secure quality public open space that could not only provide physical activities for children but would also act as a platform for them to learn about their environment through interactive experiences.

Space2place believed that traditional approaches to playground design would simply not suffice here – so they set out on a mission to create an engaging play environment that forged links with nature, improved physical and cognitive development, and encouraged creativity and exploration through spontaneous play.

To achieve this, Space2place used public workshops and design exercises with children as tools for gaining insight into local needs while simultaneously raising awareness among child-care professionals and authorities. All information gathered from research on outdoor play and onsite analysis was used to develop programmatic elements suitable for Garden City Park.

Today, Garden City Park is widely regarded as the forerunner of a new type of playscape centred on connecting children to nature and creative play. It sparked a number of similar projects across the country, all based on the same principles of creative play experiences and environmental learning. Garden City Park has become an important precedent to inspire new types of playscapes across Canada, resulting in long-term and positive change for entire communities since its inception in 2008.

“The Garden City Play Environment reconnects children to the land and the elements. It builds upon their spontaneous and creative play exploration, and in doing so, spurs the children’s cognitive and physical development. The designers gave children room for a larger expression of imagination - an approach that is sorely needed in today’s constrained and controlled playing environments.

Designed without boundaries, the space is an open invitation to everyone - not just the very young. It provides a powerful answer to neighbourhoods across the country, where so many residents are demanding that our public spaces encourage the social and age interactions that lie at the heart of community life.”

Paige Johnson - Playscapes Blog

A unique characteristic of the design was the utilization of creative grading to define specific spaces across the site. The original flat site was transformed into a rolling landscape which enhanced the children’s creative exploration of the playscape.

A water feature threads through the site connecting the different play zones. It starts with a water source on a mound then flows along a spiral channel until the weir. From the weir it changes character to a more organic form until it reaches the neighbouring pond.