HTA Style’s new play landscape for Crystal Palace Park draws on the site’s 19th-century’journey through time’idea to develop an immersive environment that combines education, accessibility and creative play within a broader program of park regeneration. HTA Style has completed a new dinosaur-themed play ground in Crystal Palace Park, south London, as part of the ongoing regeneration of the Grade II * noted historic landscape. Commissioned by Bromley Council and provided in partnership with Crystal Palace Park Trust, the project sits within a wider programme of works that is restoring key heritage functions while presenting brand-new facilities for modern usage. Located close to the park’s popular dinosaur sculptures, the play ground develops on the initial vision developed by Sir Joseph Paxton in the mid-19th century, when the park was developed as a chronological’journey through time’. The nearby Geological Court, home to the world’s first efforts to reconstruct prehistoric animals, provides both a historical anchor and a conceptual framework for the brand-new intervention. The backyard takes the type of an immersive palaeontological landscape, structured as a series of discoveries embedded within the ground. Instead of arranging play around discrete items of equipment, the scheme integrates climbing, moving and exploration into a continuous terrain of mounds, excavations and sculptural types. Dinosaur-inspired elements emerge from the landscape, motivating kids to translate and browse the space through movement and imagination. Key features of the playscape include a large skeletal climbing up structure, slides carved into embankments to stimulate claw marks, and a series of sinuous components stemmed from tails and spines that function as routes for balancing and traversal. A huge skull structure invites kids to go through its open jaws, while a footprint-shaped sandpit introduces opportunities for tactile play and fossil discovery. These components are complemented by a geological play wall and climbable boulders, referencing the Victorian illustrations that underpin the park’s instructional tradition.
The job was established through a comprehensive co-design process with regional residents, schools and neighborhood groups. Workshops and engagement sessions informed both the story and the particular play functions, with specific focus placed on the inclusion of popular dinosaurs related to the park, including Megalosaurus, Hylaeosaurus and Iguanodon. Swinging and climbing, determined as the most popular activities, are incorporated throughout the plan rather than treated as standalone tourist attractions.
Availability was another significant focus of the project, and the playground incorporates wheelchair-accessible equipment, inclusive seating and adjustable play aspects, along with proximity to a Changing Places center within the park. The objective here is to produce an environment in which kids of all capabilities can engage with the space at their own rate, without partition or hierarchy.
From a plants point of view, a scheme of ‘paleo-planting’, referencing prehistoric types, frames the backyard and strengthens the educational narrative. Through this, the landscape is conceived as a setting for play, also functioning as a medium through which more comprehensive styles of geological time, development and environmental change can be checked out.
The play ground forms part of a larger phase of financial investment across the park, that includes the repair of the Italian Balconies, enhancements to blood circulation routes and renewed access to the Tidal Lakes. Moneyed through a mix of public and charitable contributions, consisting of assistance from The National Lotto Heritage Fund and the London Marathon Foundation, the task adds to a long-term strategy aimed at securing the park’s future as both a heritage possession and a civic resource.
“The new play area continues Paxton’s vision for the park as a destination for education and home entertainment,” stated Natalia Roussou, landscape style director at HTA Design. “Co-designed with the local neighborhood and delivered by Bromley Council, and Crystal Palace Park Trust, it improves the park’s ancient narrative and motivates children to discover and analyze the play structures using their own creativity.”
Credits
Client
London District of Bromley
Landscape designer
HTA Design
Trust partner
Crystal Palace Park Trust
Professional
Maylim
Play equipment
PlayEquip
Funding
The National Lotto Heritage Fund, London Marathon Structure, Garfield Weston Foundation, Wolfson Foundation, The Pilgrim Trust