The borough of Hounslow has the eighth highest proportion of green space in London, offering local residents’ easy access to outdoor activities. But increasing pressure on parks budgets in recent years has meant that some play areas have closed or become tired and in need of refurbishment. To rectify this, the council is investing £1.1m in 2017/18 to improve selected sites across the borough, believing you can still achieve innovative, high quality, design-led playgrounds amidst the current challenges facing local authorities. 

Four new inspiring spaces

Hounslow Council has partnered with multi-award winning architects LUC to design four inspiring new Active Spaces at existing playground sites in the borough. Statistics chart the rise in childhood obesity in the UK and there is an understanding that outdoor physical activity impacts health. So the Active Spaces project aims to encourage children and their families to be more active in their day to day lives, promoting usage, community involvement and participation.

LUC is a specialist in play and landscape design, with unique play environments designed for children and young people across the UK. Award-winning projects include Tumbling Bay in the Olympic Park, a challenging natural play space for children of all ages and abilities, and the much-loved Princess Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens.

Community consultation in the design phase

Research indicates that increased physical activity amongst children is supported by increased participation of their families, carers and the local community. So parents, carers and local community organisations were invited to take part in a series of design led engagement activities which took place during the summer. Residents were also encouraged to feedback via online questionnaires and via social media.

Twelve engagement events took place led by experienced play designers. They were designed to be fun and informative with games and activities for children. Healthy eating and physical activity advice for families was provided by Hounslow’s integrated health and wellbeing service, OneYou Hounslow. 

LUC’s landscape architects also worked closely with the council as well as the community throughout the design phase to ensure that challenges were addressed and the community’s needs were met. Interactive workshops with school children and a design competition gave local pupils the opportunity to influence and inspire playground designs. Challenging climbing equipment, monkey bars and activity trails were just some of the activities suggested.

Design principles

Jennette Emery-Wallis, director of Landscape Architecture at LUC, believes that the issues facing local authorities can be addressed through the design process so that real impact can be achieved.

• The child -  ‘what experiences do we want each child to have in this play space?’ The focus is on movement; active routes (explorer paths) and types of motion (e.g. sliding, climbing, balancing) and on creating a landscape in which active play is encouraged (through land-forming and planting). 
  
  
• The comfort of carers - children play longer when carers are comfortable. Secure, self-closing gates will provide peace of mind, tree-planting will provide shade, while benches, logs and boulders will provide rest for children and carers alike.
  
  
• Play value - limited budgets mean each piece of play equipment must provide the maximum play value. This means finding pieces that allow as many children, with the widest range of age and ability, to do as many things with them as possible.
  
  
• Accessibility - smooth accessible routes around each playground allows children in wheelchairs to engage with the play, and wherever possible accessible play equipment, such as the basket swing, has been included in the schemes.
  
  
• Curiosity – the play spaces translate childrens’ instinctive curiosity into movement by creating narrow winding pathways connecting different play opportunities and making maximum use of trees, mounds and slopes, planting and long grass to encourage use and exploration of the whole place, not just the play equipment.
  
  
• Freezing maintenance costs - aware that there can be no increase maintenance costs due to financial pressures facing councils, LUC selects only extremely robust long-lived shrubs for playground planting, and specifies the most durable play pieces. LUC proposes to offset the additional maintenance that greater visitor numbers would require by leaving areas of uncut meadow grass (reducing lawn mowing) with narrow mown paths to encourage exploration, providing close-up and sensory connection with nature.
  
  

In summary

We know the environment plays a key role in increasing physical activity. With this project we wanted to create exciting new play areas which inspire children and families to be more active. The project has been successful in engaging many residents and community organisations in the design phase, maximising the benefits of investment in the borough” says councillor Samia Chaudhary, cabinet member of green policy and leisure.

Building of the new play spaces will begin early next year with completion expected in spring. Hounslow Council is partnering with St. Mary’s University who will conduct a research project to evaluate and measure the impact of the project.