📓From the designer's desk: Inside the Hollow Log Play Park

PLANT Architects Inc. has been working on the Mulock Park project since 2019 when the firm was selected to create the masterplan and guide the work for the transformation of the former private estate into a public hub for culture, recreation and connecting with nature.

In this post, PLANT shares some insight from the Designer's Desk on another key feature - the Hollow Log Play Park.

Welcome to the Hollow Log Play Park! While most of this project involved transforming the extant portion of a private estate into a new community destination for culture, recreation, and connecting with nature, the northwest corner of the site had already been converted to a neighbourhood park several decades earlier. Part of what was formerly Jim Bond Park will soon have a new role as Mulock Park’s top spot for kids. A great place for climbing, swinging, exploring, and happily learning with water and sand, the Hollow Log Play Park – like many other parts of Mulock Park – tells an ecological story. Its subject: the regenerative life cycle of the forest.

Areas within the playground represent various parts of a fallen tree that generates new forest growth as it decays.
📷 Steven Evans Photography

Collectively, the playground’s zones represent a fallen tree, nurturing new forest growth as it decays. The tree’s tunnel-like hollow trunk can be climbed from inside or out; sculptures of giant mushrooms spring up where wood would break down and fertilize the soil; a big branch, split open down its centre, invites kids to pump water at one end and watch it flow through the channel and into the ground. (Thanks to Earthscape for beautifully and safely bringing our concept for the Hollow Log Play Park to life.)

Nearby, a stand of trees provides a quiet, shady spot to rest on a bench and cool off after tearing around the playground.

Kids can climb and swing from the ‘nest of branches’ play structure while their caregivers take a seat nearby. 📷Steven Evans Photography