- Partners
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CLIENT: Sunbury College
ARCHITECT: Spaces Design Group
CONTRACTOR: Happy Gardener - Landscapes
- Location
- Sunbury, Australia
- Market
- Education
“Our students and staff enjoy our new interactive play space that is both inclusive and physically challenging. The benefits of physical recreation that the playground provides extends beyond the equipment and into the classroom, where students arrive engaged and invigorated from their play.”
John Lane, Assistant Principal, Sunbury College
A place to play for everyone, every day.
Sunbury College is a vital part of the Sunbury community providing exceptional education since 1960 to generations of student in north-west Melbourne. With a population of over 1,000 students from Years 7 to 12, the college offers a rich and engaging curriculum and co-curricular opportunities for their cohort. Its learning spaces span the creative and performing arts, to sporting facilities and open and inviting recreational spaces. When the Victorian government initiated the Inclusive Schools Fund, the college welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with Playground Centre to create a thrilling and exciting all-ages play space that embraces and supports the diverse abilities of students and staff alike. In collaboration with the school community, the College prioritised the delivery of a recreational space with multiple ways to play for fun and fitness. And their goals for “high educational and wellbeing outcomes” are reflected in the positive play and learning benefits their new space delivers.
Collaboration
Playground Centre, in collaboration with Spaces Design Group, developed a tailored, inclusive play space for the entire school community. Working in consultation with the college community, the play area is an exemplar of inclusive recreational design offering opportunities for imagination, interaction, and endless physical fun.
The design and layout of the individual elements were refined and adapted, in consultation with both the school community and Spaces Design Group, across the project’s development. This maintained the budget while realising the College’s vision for a space that would provide physical benefits for staff as well as students. The ultimate result is a space that challenges, delights, engages and inspires.
Solution
The possibilities for adventurous play abound in this exciting and invigorating playground, which incorporates a range of inclusive equipment for all fitness levels.
Inviting bright colours entice students and staff into the space, while the combination of equipment choices like the Ninja Crossing and the Turbo Challenge Fitness Station provide opportunities for healthy and active play, interaction, and challenge.
A cohesive design attracts engagement from one equipment piece to the next allowing for a stimulating and imaginative play experience. The integration of the playground into the natural surrounds provides a combination of play within nature and with the structures. The site features climbing ropes, push up bars and natural wood stepping logs to navigate, and these equipment choices sit harmoniously within the site’s natural features. Set in its own space surrounded by lush green lawns and native Australian flora, the play area also offers a space for relaxation alongside physical play. Incorporating a towering 2.65m Up & Over and a Chin-Up Fitness Station, the site activates both the muscles and the mind putting priorities into practice in step with the school’s vision to provide challenging and differentiated learning opportunities that allow all students to be extended. Sunbury College’s playground is not just a place for physical fun, but a space that ignites and inspires the imagination and encourages innovative thinking.
Feeling inspired? Talk to one of our playground design and build specialists today.
