The Play Park2015 - Dublin, Irlelandcompetition, “Highly Commended”

The new Play Park is situated in front of the access to the new Leisure Centre building of Ballyfermot. Taking advantage of the difference in height between the Eastern and the Western part of the park the new skate area is dug in the ground from a depth of -2.5 meters up to the street level. In this way the park perfectly adapts its shape to the orography of the ground. The idea is to create a system of connected bowls that satisfies the needs of a full range of skaters: so, thanks to the changing height of the bowls, due to the difference depth of the existing ground shape, we create three different areas according to the skill’s level of each skaters. First of all we decide to respect as much as possible the position of vegetation, avoiding cutting existing trees. So the park’s shape doesn’t arise randomly, but it has been generated according to the current native vegetation. Starting from a central ellipse that encircles a thick group of trees, the skate park develops as a dug trilobated track. All the bowls are surrounded by the existing trees: the concept is to keep unchanged as much as possible the aspect of the area and to avoid creating a new system of hills that may obstruct the view from the road. In fact the park is open to the pedestrian’s street view so as to create a relationship between the green area and the city. Another feature that characterizes the project is the use of different colors of the concrete that made the raw aspect of the material more playful and funny. The skate area is surrounded by the existing pedestrian path that reaches two sides of the park and may be use also for the passage of the ambulance and the maintenance.