Many of today's playgrounds are designed around specific play equipment situated on an economically sized rubber safety surfacing. These play spaces focus on the manufactured play equipment as the beginning and end of the play experience and offer little connection to nature or the surrounding environment. Camp Matecumbe playground is an innovative play space which breaks this mold and seeks to connect children with their environment.

The project's scope included a playground and a parking area. The client, Miami-Dade County Parks Recreation and Open Spaces Department asked the landscape architect to develop a play space which would blend in with the existing nature of the site, particularly with a nearby Pine Rockland preserve. This habitat once covered significant amounts of land in Miami-Dade County, but in recent times it has been reduced to just a few small stands.

In addition to blending with the existing nature of the adjacent preserve, our goal was to create an immersive play experience in which the play area would be intertwined with natural elements. Our approach to the design was to create a space that would inspire curiosity of natural things and mimic the exciting explorations children might discover when playing in nature. We also sought to create a safe space that would allow children to run around freely in a large open area and explore their environment.

The new playground is defined by pathways and open spaces covered in engineered wood fiber (EWF). The woody EWF provides ASTM certified head impact safety while also providing a naturalistic feel. The play spaces and pathways intermingle with native planting islands planted with large mature specimen Live Oak trees and Slash Pine trees. The oaks for the project were carefully selected for naturalistic characters, with gnarled branches, and multiple trunks. The inclusion of mature oaks helps to create an established and natural feel while lending substantial shade for children at play, avoiding the need for artificial shade structures.

 

A significant feature of the new play space is a new 120' x 90' x 10' tall constructed earthwork hill covered with native Pine Rockland planting including Slash Pines, Saw Palmettos, Fakahatchee grasses, and Cocoplum shrubs. Children can climb the hill via large stepped native oolite blocks or by a gentler slope covered in mortared river rock. After reaching the top of the hill, children can then slide down on a super-sized 20' long embankment slide leading back to the main playground level.

The center of the playground is marked by a dome shaped jungle gym with a variety of play elements, including rope climbing nets, swings, slides, and membranes to jump or rest on. There is also a small obstacle course using recovered Florida river logs, a swingset, a wood playhouse and music elements.

The client, Miami Dade County has been very pleased with the design. They have developed a guidebook that utilizes the design ideas from this playground to guide the designs of other playgrounds by other consultants working for the county. The project also recently won a Florida ASLA Award in 2022.

Project Designer: Douglas Thompson, Landscape Architect for LandcapeDE
General Contractor: Stonehenge Construction
Civil Engineer for Parking Area: Conemco Consultants
Client: Miami-Dade County Parks Recreation and Open Spaces Department

The upcoming Playgrounds Issue of Landscape Architect and Specifier News saw many firms submit their projects for feature consideration. This project was not chosen for a Feature in the issue, but we at LandscapeArchitect.com thought the project deserved to be showcased online . . .

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