Victoria Park (known colloquially as Vicky Park or the People’s Park)[1][2] is 86.18 hectares of open space [3] that opened in 1845. It stretches out across part of the East End of London, bordering parts of Bethnal Green, Hackney, and Bow, such as along Old Ford Road, London E3 and Victoria Park Road E9. The park is entirely within the…
A project to create a shared communal, playable space – a ‘village green’ – in a housing estate. Once again, we try to evoke through our designs a ‘culture of permission’ and invitation – creating the context for non-planned, informal, social interaction. This finds symbolic and practical expression in the pathway with seating running through the playable, communal space. …
A hugely important and archaeologically sensitive public green space requiring Schedule Monument Consent for any development. PLAYLINK, in collaboration with the client and various specialists, navigated our scheme through the SMC process. The new playable area sits between the dramatic ruins of the medieval abbey and the River Lark. The intermingling of culture and nature provide the context for scheme dramatically…
Thornbury Park was an underused park offering few facilities apart from flat grass land used for football games, and a conventional fenced, fixed equipment playground. LB Hounslow secured funding for a wheel park and ball court. Initially local and client thinking was to place both facilities at the perimeter of the park, ‘out of the way’. Our view was different.…
The project was to bring a piece of underused and essentially purposeless piece of land into fruitful use. The patch of land was outside the Health Centre which served the local area including a nearby residential estate.The commission, formally with Croydon Council, was in practice a three way partnership between the Health Centre, Council and PLAYLINK. We were able to use…
One aspect of the proposed ‘Olympic Games Legacy’ was the creation of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – divided into a North and South Park. PLAYLINK was invited to be part of a bidding consortium led by the New York based James Corner Field Operations, designers of the rightly acclaimed New York High Line. The bid for the South Park…
Flying Fortress Park is a newly created open space within a housing development and regeneration area, currently of around 7,500 homes and increasing. At the point PLAYLINK was commissioned, in July 2013, the open space could be described as ‘flat, windy and raw’ with few features and little or no natural shade. This will change over time as the planting…
The site within the wider Inwood Park was a disused, traditional paddling pool that had fallen into disuse. In this commission – to create a water play area – we were clear that we wanted to create a range of play opportunities, certainly with water as a major feature, but within a setting that was welcoming to family groups, that…
The Carville Hall Park South commission, about £325,000, included major works to the park as a whole, including draining and dredging the lake and rescuing terrapins that had taken up lodging there. Creation of a ball court was part of the commission to create a playable park. What is highlighted in the photos that follow are the relatively low key,…