Hasta La Ideas

Rotterdam-based Studio Makkink & Bey has added an industrial playground with a decorative perimeter fence to a Mecanoo-designed housing complex in Reimerswaal, the Netherlands.

Studio Makkink & Bey was asked by social housing provider Ymere to come up with a design for the courtyards of the brick-built Reimerswaalhof housing complex designed by Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, which opened in 2011.

The designers responded by creating an adventure playground, where climbing frames and tubular steel slides are combined to create a single complex structure for children to play on and around.

The playground is accessible both to the residents of the new apartments and to students from the neighbouring elementary school.

“The play sculpture was designed to invite the schoolchildren of Sint Lukas elementary school to share their domain with the children who live there,” said the designers.

The dark tones of the adventure playground are mirrored by the surrounding fencing, which is made up of vertical steel rods sculpted to create cartoon-like outlines in the shapes of domestic furniture.

“Fences and sculptures show kinship with the architecture of the surrounding buildings; they form a family together,” added the designers.

Here’s a project description from Studio Makkink & Bey:

Defining the private spaces in the courtyards of Reimerswaal

Studio Makkink & Bey was asked by Ymere to develop a concept to define the private spaces in the courtyards of Reimerswaal. Both the play sculpture, and courtyard fence are fused together – combining the private and public functions of street furniture. The buildings around the ‘Reimerswaalhof’ courtyard were designed by Mecanoo architects. The buildings include social housing, private sector housing, wheelchair accessible housing, apartments, an office space and an elementary school.

The fence marks a transition between the private features that are typical for an enclosed yard and the public character of the space around it. The play sculpture by Studio Makkink & Bey was designed to invite the schoolchildren of Sint Lukas elementary school to share their domain with the children who live there. The children can easily slide back and forth over the borderline between private and public domain. By doing so, they playfully soften and smudge the boundaries of ownership.

Fences and sculptures show kinship with the architecture of the surrounding buildings, they form a family together. Individually, the railings each maintain their own character and depict their own story, while the line drawings in steel rods create perspective and a spatial effect. Domestic elements were used to make the public space feel safe and comfortable.

The post Studio Makkink & Bey adds industrial playground
to Mecanoo’s Reimerswaalhof housing appeared first on Dezeen.

Customers can leave their children playing downstairs and dine beside a four metre-high model elephant at this Bucharest restaurant.

Recently completed by Romanian designers Nuca Studio, Phill houses its restaurant on the first floor, while a playground, multi-function hall and café occupy the ground level below.

The elephant stands over the central staircase and appears to be listening to music from a painted-on mp3 player and headphones.

Circular openings create colourfully framed views between rooms, allowing parents to keep an eye on their children.

Other Dezeen stories featuring fun play areas include a series of sculptural trees for a high school and a house complete with slides and a ballpond.

Photography is by Cosmin Dragomir.

Here’s some more information from Nuca Studio:

Phill – Playground & Restaurant in Bucharest by Nuca Studio

Phill is a meeting place designed for the entire family. It has a playground, a multipurpose room and a small café at the ground floor and a restaurant at the second level.

The playground and the multipurpose room are enclosed areas with independent light and acoustic scenarios and they accommodate activities from theater and puppet shows to martial arts and ballet lessons.

In between them the small café communicates visually with the playground through a couple of round openings.

Upstairs, the dining area is an open space directly linked with the lobby.

The functions of the program have their own agenda but at the same time they work closely together therefore the connection of the individual spaces was very important.

In order to link these different rooms, the walls were perforated by transparent openings and a special attention was paid to the stairs design which climb their way to the second floor around a 4 meter tall elephant.

Attempting to be appealing to both children and adults the overall design draws its inspiration from vinyl toy and Manga culture, looking to be engaging and to capture the imagination of all visitors.

The exact formal sense of the ceiling’s intricate geometry is open to interpretation as some of the shapes resulted from a meticulous handling of the complicated air duct system alongside the heavy concrete structure.

Project team: Robert Marin, Andrei Rotariu, Mihnea Vieru, Mircea Adrian Mihai

See also:

.

Tokyo Baby Cafe by Nendo	Restaurant Praq by Tjep.	Café/day by Suppose Design Office