Klimaatspeelplaats St Paulus by Studio Basta + Atelier Ruimtelijk Advies

The playground project in Sint-Paulus Kortrijk was one of the 23 projects selected for the Flemish Environment Department’s Proeftuin Ontharding. Through this campaign, the Flemish government is committed to both climate adaptation and mitigation. After all, softening combats heat island effects, provides more space for water and ensures better air quality, greater biodiversity and more CO₂ storage, among other things. The school made a commitment to connect 90% of the roofs to a new rainwater system where reuse and infiltration into the soil are paramount. In addition, the entire playground+ car park (4000 m²) was demolished and reconstructed.

The distribution of new tiling – green areas is 50/50. Of the total 4000 m², 1750 m² will be reconstructed as green zones. Some paving is still needed for various school activities. The rainwater that will fall on that paving will be collected and released into the ground via an infiltration system. In this way, the entire school site, including buildings, covering 4800 m² will become a zone where rainwater will be reused or infiltrated.

For the redevelopment of its playground, St Paul’s worked on a comprehensive participatory process involving children, teachers, parents, contractors, play and landscape designers. The project realised ample softening with great attention to ecological design and increasing the collection capacity and reuse of rainwater. The children see this process happening and consequently learn about it. We have also set up a water play area in the playground, where children get to work with water. It was also important for our school to think about the heat stress caused by excessive sunshine on a barren concrete plain. Planting trees, regional greenery and reducing concrete surface will provide shade and cooling in the long run.The air quality at and around our school is also important. Here too, more trees play an important role. They help capture our CO2 emissions, retain them and help filter the air.
A climate playground provides an answer to various challenges that come with climate change. For our school, it was important to consider the heat stress caused by abundant sunshine on a bare concrete surface. Planting trees, native greenery and limiting concrete surface will provide shade and coolness over time.

In addition, air quality in and around our school is also important. Here too, more trees play an important role. They help to capture our CO2 emissions, retain it and thus help to filter the air. The series of lessons and projects brought this story into the classroom. Water is essential to our story. The softening of our playground ensures that rainwater is collected, recovered and infiltrated. During storms we avoid the sewage system in the city to flood and we re-use our captured water. We help raising groundwater levels by helping the water to infiltrate in the soil. To teach our children the importance of biodiversity and a healthy ecosystem, they help take care of our playground. Through outdoor lessons and contact with greenery, they are given co-responsibility for their playground. The bee project ‘Bie Paulus’ at our school, which is run by a few parents, also brings the children straight to the essence of what a healthy ecosystem stands for.

Daring to make sustainable choices, daring to invest in the long term is what our story is about. The high involvement of children, parents and teachers ensures a solid foundation. As a school, we have invested in a sustainable design with materials with a long lifespan. Our playground is never finished and will continue to grow and flourish into a green play oasis where numerous children will have a wonderful school time in the years to come. Being a playground for the neighborhood was key because we realised a play and meeting place for and by the neighbourhood that can be used after hours.

The playground is now a brilliant practical example of how, as a school, you can put the children’s interests first and reconnect them with their natural environment. More and more research shows that, as adults, we have a responsibility to restore this connection. If we want our future generations to care for nature, we will have to connect them to it from an early age. There are no better places to do this than the playgrounds of our schools where they learn and play every day. If these places are smartly designed, with space for play, learning, exploration and nature then you immediately make a difference. Our design chose monkey-proof materials such as robinia wood and other robust materials. More than 40 trees and over 150 shrubs were planted in a varied landscape where natural materials such as sand and gravel play an important role. Sports fields were also laid out throughout the nature-rich areas so that both large and fine motor skills are stimulated. Clear walking lines, well thought-out layout and bold choices regarding planting, adventurous and risky play now provide a fantastic playground for children. As teachers, we notice that bullying has all but disappeared from our playground. Our children are less bored. We see a wonderful variety of play forms and we have countless opportunities for outdoor learning. Our children learn to care for animals and plants and learn about healthy eating and recycling. For example, there is a vegetable garden with greenhouse, we keep chickens and bees and we have our own recycling park. We track the growth of our trees through qr codes where each tree has its own online passport and life in our nest boxes is tracked through wildlife cameras. The school also has its own weather station allowing pupils to publish their own local weather report.

This variety of learning opportunities are seldom seen and make this project unique and exemplary.

• Project typology: natural schoolplayground

• All landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape:
Studio Basta + Atelier Ruimtelijk Advies

• Other credits you need or wish to write:

www.klimaatspeelplaats.be

https://hundred.org/en/innovations/klimaatspeelplaats

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