Ian Potter's WILD PLAY Garden Celebrates 5-year Anniversary
A botanical wonderland nestled within the tree-lined avenues and rolling hills, this playground is a whimsical and immersive experience that encourages children and their imaginations to run wild.
Built in 2017, this project responded to research that suggests few Australian children play outdoors regularly. The play spaces are staged to reveal themselves in an unexpected sequence, which makes the site feel almost endless. Discovery and adventure await around each turn, with interweaving paths and experiences that are designed to reference features of the surrounding natural environment. It's playgrounds like this that set a precedent for open exploration and adventure for children and adults alike, taking us out of the digital realm we currently dwell in and sinking us back into nature to reconnect.
This anniversary was a lovely celebration for those involved from the Centennial Parklands Foundation to our design team. It was an opportunity for Centennial Park to launch future stages of the space, including a unique nature education facility in the coming years. We look forward to seeing how this area continues to unfold and offer exciting new opportunities for creative design responses such as the WILD PLAY Garden.
