King’s School

Location

Auckland, New Zealand

Market

Education | Landscape Architects

Play Priorities

King's School is a leading independent boys' primary school in the heart of Remuera overlooking Auckland Harbour. With a roll of 700 boys, from the Early Learning Centre to Year 8 (4–13 years), it is located on a spacious, sloping site with beautiful mature trees and vibrant mix of historic and contemporary buildings. The school wanted to update its existing adventure playground to ensure health and safety standards, invigorate the outdoor learning area, and create a ‘wildplay’ experience. The project goals included offering a wide range of play experiences such as climbing, sliding, balancing, swinging, jumping, sound and rhythm. They also wanted to provide a challenging canvas for social games such as ‘tag’ and ‘floor is lava’, with multiple routes from top to bottom of the site.

Fun Solution

We worked with the school and landscape architects from Boffa Miskell to help create a sustainable, rustic adventure trail for students. A customised tower (designed to sit on the slope) and tube slide are connected via an adventure trail with timber steppers, stilts, natural logs, basket seats and balance elements – including a wobbly wood climbing unit and rock holds for climbing. The trail also leads to a large spider web net  hung on a slanting angle held between 6 poles, to take a break from the activity or watch the action on the tennis courts below. To complete the picture, outdoor drums and talk tubes add music and sound to the experience!

The equipment was a mixture of imported and NZ manufactured. Using our own manufacturing capabilities , we were able to use similar products to create a seamless play space

In an article from School News New Zealand, Project lead Aynsley Cisaria (from Boffa Miskell) said: “This playspace was designed on the premise that young boys thrive when they experience a sense of adventure, excitement and perceived risk in their play. We wanted to build and expand on the imaginative play already happening on the ground and invite the boys ‘up into the trees’ with a challenging aerial rope course, tree hut tower and slide. It’s about encouraging young men to be brave, take risks in their play choices and experience the thrill of achievement as they discover new skills … and have a whole lot of fun in the process!”