The Nest is another example of eye-catching and hyper-stimulating design done by 100architects to improve and beautify the urban public realm, in this case in the city of Chengdu, the capital of the Chinese province of Sichuan.
The project belongs to a particular typology of urban public interventions intending to be “urban toys for the city”. Following the studio’s belief that “Play is not only for kids”, 100architects have designed this urban playscape to boost joy and entertainment for kids and adults alike, regardless of their age. A colorful playscape that acts as an urban attractor,calling the attention by standing out from its urban surrounding environment.
The narrative of the design of this multifunctional playscape, and hence its name The Nest, is driven and inspired by the idea of a colorful birth, a magical moment of birth of two little chicks in their nest, being accompanied by their mother bird, who is trying to provide them with their first meal.
The three birds, as main IP objects, emerge in the center as vertical play structures which can be habitable by kids, climbing up & sliding down, finding in each of them different play opportunities. Surrounding the main birds, the project evolves with a pattern based on circles, which act as platforms for leisure and social interaction and in which a wide range of other functions are implemented in order to enhance the multifunctionality of the playscape.
Those surrounding circles provide kids for instance with a sunken sandpit, swings or a trampoline; youngsters with a round ping-pong table and a fitness core; and adults & elders with features such as a Chinese chess table, elderly exercising equipment, and even different sitting components under eggshell-shaped canopies for shadowing.
As a way of sewing all the circular components together, a meandering running track is used around them, turning the playscape into a multifunctional circuit of events to be enjoyed by kids & adults alike.
To complete this urban intervention in a holistic way, the surrounding landscape is also solved with circular shapes of greenery, bushes, flowers and trees, enclosing the playscape in a safe way for kids to play freely.
The colorful floor, solved with EPDM to absorb impacts while playing, renders a wide range of patterns, graphics and interactive games which connect the different spaces and activities of the space.
The night effect of the project enhances the meandering shapes of all the eggshells through decorative lighting with flex LED strips on the edges. This includes the eggshells from which the little chicks are arise, and the ones serving as shadowing canopies. For functional lighting, lampposts were designed with smaller eggshell-shaped lamps on top.
