Solving the Greenfield Playground Puzzle

The key aspects of a superior greenfield development are clear: location, community and amenities—specifically, open spaces for families to enjoy as typical land sizes decrease and the need for private backyards shifts towards shared greenspaces.

As we know, building large, high-quality and attractive parks and playgrounds is a key strategy to bring families to your development and create a community feel that adds real value.

KOMPAN are the master at collaborating with developers to build custom playgrounds and outdoor fitness sites that get to the bottom of what motivates users to play and exercise, with decades of research in user psychology and play theory.

But there’s another aspect to a tailor-made playground that takes it to a whole new level that you may be missing.

Adding a theme to a custom design creates an unbeatable ‘wow’ factor to your playground and instant recognition, transforming your space from a fun space for families to a local landmark, and a place that sticks in children’s minds.

Think back to when you were a child, and the playgrounds you remember growing up on. Sure, you played on simple slides and swing sets, but can you recall what they looked like or where they were?

▲ What makes a playground memorable?

Now recall the playgrounds you do remember—what kept them in your memory? Any bet they were intriguing to look at and told a story—pirates at sea with a ship-themed playground, or knights and princesses in the castle tower. Or maybe you played astronauts fighting aliens in the spaceship.

These themes create prime locations for children to form core memories and develop key physical, cognitive, social and creative skills. They act as safe places for children’s imaginations to run wild, discover their passions and create connections with new friends in their area. The KOMPAN Play Institute found that adding an intriguing theme to a play area greatly improves language and social-emotional skills in young children and stimulates their cognition development thanks to its ties to imagination and mimicry.

Recognisable themes in your master planned parks also add invaluable branding benefits to your development. A themed playground can tell a story, nod to history or highlight flora or fauna in your area. It creates a unique location that acts as a landmark for the wider community and brings a brand to life in a way that is intwined with happy and lifelong memories.

KOMPAN’s team of designers and architects work with developers to brainstorm and extract the best theme for your unique playspace. They study your concept and extract the best features that represent it, creating a truly spectacular piece of play art.

Stockland, the team behind UDIA Award-winning development Aura have brought KOMPAN and Queensland play partners Urban Play into their open space design process to create out-of-this-world play landmarks in Nirimba, Baringa and Banya and see the results after their many years of collaboration.

▲ The KOMPAN treehouse in situ.

A perfect example is the Aura Treehouse, which was designed by KOMPAN to incorporate key storytelling elements like the colourful diamonds in Aura’s logo and the client’s idea of a climbable tree like the ones he’d seen on a recent holiday.

Alongside the vision of Place Design Group, the prompts and creative design crafted a play sculpture that is now a cornerstone of the development’s identity.

“Working with KOMPAN is easy, they have a great design intuition so working with them from the outset to create some quality design elements in the parks has been really good,” Place Design Group design manager Penny Spiers said.

Stockland development manager Tom Hadden made note of the ease of ideating incredible themed play concepts with KOMPAN for the Dino Park in Nirimba.

“Our senior development manager thought about the things she loved as a kid and remembered the dinosaur figurines she used to play with,” Hadden said.

“We took that vision to the teams at KOMPAN and Urban Play and asked how we could deliver on it.

“They’ve gotten to know the business so well and were fantastic at creating a really cool play area that draws kids of all ages to the park and activates the open space.

“The thought that goes into delivering play equipment with KOMPAN and Urban Play is second to none.”

With hundreds of custom playgrounds designed and installed globally, KOMPAN say they are the undisputed leaders in bespoke playgrounds, and offer the best in quality, durability, play value and aesthetics.

Their experience with working alongside clients to skillfully encapsulate a theme and story proves to Australian developers and architects that investing in a KOMPAN custom playground or outdoor fitness site will being tremendous value and ‘wow’ factor to their next greenfield development.

Order your Themed Play Concepts brochure or learn more and book a consultation with KOMPAN today.

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