PROJECTS

Award-winning nature play space that redefined UK playground design—championing immersive, landscape-led environments for children, families, and communities to connect with nature.

King Georges Field Playscape

Originally conceived by Adam White and Andrée Davies in 2005 the award-winning Playscape redefined the boundaries of what a play space could be. Rather than relying on static, brightly coloured equipment, Playscape demonstrated how the entire landscape, mounds, water, boulders, planting, and landform could offer rich, inclusive play value. Premiering at the 2007 RHS Hampton Court Flower Show in partnership with Play England, the design scooped an RHS Gold Medal and BBC People’s Choice Award, before traveling to RHS Tatton Park and then being re-imagined in a west London pocket park.

The Playscape show gardens were inspired by the designers visits to Germany, a childhood of freedom and the belief that natural play is vital to children's development. Timber walkways, climbing boulders, willow tunnels, meadows, water play, and edible and sensory planting transformed the spaces into immersive environments for imagination, risk, and discovery. More than 170,000 people visited the Hampton Court garden alone, affirming the public’s appetite for play rooted in nature, not plastic. The garden was used as a best practice case study to help secure a £235m investment in nature play spaces across the UK.

Completed:  2010 Client: London Borough of Ealing Budget:  N/A 

Following the shows, Playscape was relocated to its permanent site, ensuring its benefits reached real communities. The project also involved Groundwork Green Team, an initiative to support long-term unemployed people be trained in landscape construction and horticulture. Residents created a 'friends of group' which is still active some 15 years later. Playscape remains a milestone in nature-based design, inspiring a generation of landscape architects and local authorities to think beyond the swing set.