Playground at the Kirchsteig in Meißen

Close-to-nature playground on the outskirts of the small town of Meißen, between settlement and forest, located on the banks of a stream.
The motto "Forest-Castle" is based on the existing high tube slide on a hill and offers especially children between 4 and 12 years with the "dungeons", the "castle wall", the "castle rampart", "crenellated path", "secret passage" and a ropeway diverse climbing, balancing and hiding offers as well as spaces for role play and nature experience.

In the fall of 2013, a so-called comparison of variants for the renewal of the existing playground, which is about 15 years old, was conducted with three invited landscape architecture firms, which was won by our office. Since in June 2014 a mudslide devastated the facility, the course of the Kirchsteigbach and the adjacent paths and access roads up to Ossietzkystraße and the boulder catch basin planned parallel to the playground for the urgently needed flood protection had priority, the start of planning was delayed until early 2017.
In order to unite the playground and its surroundings in terms of design and function, an integrative overall concept was required with a motto that matched the character of the existing structure and the surrounding nature: the 'Forest Castle' combines the castle-tower-like character of the slide tower visible from afar, the only remnant of the former playground, with the near-natural orientation of the future playground that responds to its surroundings. The motto allows the use of the existing modelling for the design of a castle complex with castle wall, keep, rampart, dungeons, palisades and moats.
The existing hill with up to 2 m difference in height to the surroundings with the over 6 m high tower ascent forms the main castle. Two platforms with a subsequent "battlement walk", a climbing and balancing route consisting of bouncy palisades, balancing ropes and logs, platforms of different heights and ascents and descents of varying difficulty, extend this to the keep and offer the children further play and climbing opportunities. In this way, smaller children can also benefit, for whom the ascent to the slide is too difficult and exciting. The existing hill was designed with rocks, palisades, lying logs, a climbing wall and the "dungeons" in such a way that, on the one hand, the character of a defiant castle is underlined, but above all that the children are offered here physical challenges for 'boarding' the forest castle at various levels of difficulty. The existing difference in level between the plateau and the surrounding area is reinforced by the construction of a moat with play sand on the entrance side and a 'secret passage' hidden between stones and wood on the forest side. While the entrances and exits are hidden behind willow bushes, the passage itself is open at the top and secured at the sides by naturally grown robinia trunks from the adjacent forest. It connects the castle hill with the stream bed via a lateral branch. A ropeway runs parallel to it, over which the children can swing towards the stream.
Thanks to a sequence of vertically installed trunks of different heights, the slide tower as a castle blends harmoniously into the overall layout.
The adjacent stream bed, which is turned into an airy water playground with the help of stones, pebbles and sand, can be reshaped by the children according to their ideas.