Image: De Urbanisten and Studio Marco Vermeulen
Two Dutch architects want to alter the storm drainage system of the city of Rotterdam to redirect water into playgrounds. The water will be used to fill fanciful ponds and moats for children to play in/around:
In Florian Boer and Marco Vermeulen's proposal, rainwater runoff isn't funneled into a complex system of underground pipes, a system that is rather expensive to build and maintain, but is managed instead through a network of surface reservoirs, the Waterpleinen, or Watersquares. These storage spaces will be dry for most of the year, but during storm events, they will collect water from the surrounding neighborhood. If one reaches capacity, excess water will overflow into another basin. After the rain, the collected water will slowly recede into nearby bodies of water or seep into the soil.
So instead of being buried in concrete, excised from the daily life of the city and only experienced by municipal workers, urban hydrology is visibly, even prominently, incorporated into the surface fabric of the city. Programmed with recreational opportunities when its dry and even while inundated, its infrastructure provides active public spaces for the local area, not dark playgrounds for a handful of urban explorers. It even becomes an event, its frolicking rivulets and interior lakes staged for the young and old.
Link via Fast Company
I can't imagine that it would be very safe to let little children play in heavy metal and all the other types of effluent that was down storm drains.
Take a look at the next storm water drain, and the look at the goo collected at the bottom of the hole and ask yourself if you want to wade knee deep in there and then spend the rest of the morning wandering around in your disease suit?
Nice in theory, but unless they can some how clean the water before it gets to the kids playground this is a very bad idea
A nice small Filtration system for each site would be cool..Then cleaned out when the season changes..
Insted of 1 Location to clean water, a diverse Clean up system.
To many people think, MIXING all the good and BAD in 1 spot is better then CLEANING it up by AREA.
Oil makes such pretty rainbows in the water!!
Killjoy. lol :P
One should note however, that these plans do not seem to include swimming as much as jumping over puddles.
Granted the most informative stuff is all in Dutch, so here's another raise-your-hand poll: who here thinks the city of Rotterdam (which will build not only the watersquares but also a much larger stormwater infrastructure, of which these outdoor reservoirs are just part of it), will actually allow stormwater to go unfiltered and let children play in mucky water?
Judging from the comments, looks like most of you will be raising your hands. *sigh*
a park where their children are encouraged to play in dirty water.
OH! Also the majority of it looks like it is made of concrete or at the very least something hard where their children can chip their teeth.
Doi!
I like the "frolicking rivulets". I can't remembre the last time I saw a rivulet frolic.
As for the playground being made of tooth-chipping concrete, I say you gotta learn how to avoid injury somehow. Making everything out of Nerf is no way to instill survival skills.
This picture looks just like Heemraadsplein though, which is a stone-throw away from where i live, i look forward to seeing it.
I myself a involved in a 330 m2 green roof over my head, buffering almost 7000 liters of water if necessary.
They should be careful, it might attract Zombies.
Wes - Arielle's comment brings up a good point to consider. Intentionally pouring uneven pavement in a park intended for young children seems a bit off.
When I was a kid, playgrounds were made of huge wooden beams, metal poles, chains and tires, surrounded by yards of gravel, all potentially injury-inducing. I survived and so did all my friends. We also learned to look where we were going, that splinters wouldn't kill us, that crushed rock wasn't something to wrestle on, and most important, sliding down the slide in shorts during the height of summer was a very bad idea.
When I was a little bit older, I enjoyed running around the Leonhardt Lagoon in Dallas (http://tinyurl.com/ydtknty) and the Fort Worth Water Gardens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Worth_Water_Gardens), both of which comprised -- guess what -- concrete and water.
I know I'm turning into a crotchety old man, but frankly today's plastic-bubble playgrounds make me sad. Raising kids in an entirely padded environment produces adults with no coping skills the same way raising them in a sterile, antibacterial setting produces adults with weak immune systems.
Let your kids get a few bruises and scrapes! Concrete only hurts when you aren't careful.
BTW - the two examples you provided look like great implementation of water and concrete, but the intention of the space is different. I don't think there is anything wrong with those spaces because I suspect people realize there is reason to take caution, whereas the space proposed in this project would encourage different behavior.