Ruth Czermak, Botanical Traditions - Silver Award
Commercial Landscape Design - Design Brief:
The narrow site for this privately owned childcare centre presented a challenging brief. Legal requirements associated with a playspace had to met. Items (including trees) needed to be located 1.2m away from boundaries to prevent climbability, softfall areas needed to be wide enough to allow for climbing equipment (for example the minimum fall zone is 3m plus the width of the equipment), sandpits had to be included and plant selection had to be correct and suitable.
In addition, the centre had a first floor which overhung the ground floor in many areas. As the building had a large footprint in comparison to the site size there were also issues to do with compaction. Materials were selected which would stand up to the wear involved with a centre which has the minimum legal ratio of kids to outdoor space (7m2 per child). In many situations hard or synthetic surfaces were used to meet this need. Issues were addressed by looking at what age group the kids would be in each playspace and designing an age appropriate setting considering the other constraints of the project.