Microcosm “Waldspielplatz” - A forest playground in the Phoenix Quarter

The newly-designed playground “Mikrokosmos- Waldrand” is supposed to convey the world from the perspective of an ant in the forest travelling across a clearing.
The children of an adjoining day care centre developed some ideas and suggestions on what kind of play objects the new playground should have from their “little” perspective. In close collaboration with the planning office von Hantelmann, Zimmer.Obst tried to implement the children’s wishes as far as they could be brought into alignment with regulatory authority guidelines, safety requirements, the design approach envisioned by planners and the available budget. Light-green logs (robinia ), that grow out of the ground like shoots form the foundation that underpins the playground’s custom-designed play equipment - and the grounds as a whole. The grounds are arranged is circuit fashion to create a microcosm character. Variously sized play islands offer playing opportunities for different age groups. There is a barely perceptible division between the day-care centre’s playground and the public playground. In the late afternoon, everyone is allowed to play on the day-care playground as well.
Thus, one finds various types of swings and mud-and-sand-play-areas, spring riders and wiggle platforms, climbing towers made to look like an ant hill, climbing courses and various kinds of slides. The podiums, too, jive with the overriding theme and are partly shaped as leaves. As the main symbol, the red ant shows up in abstracted form in all areas of play.
The separate play islands are partly connected to one another by “animal tracks”, whose path the children are encouraged to follow across the playground. This will allow them to discover and research the different playground sections. These tracks were either fastened to the panelled surface or carved into the podium’s wood panelling and subsequently painted.