Archipelago is a playscape located on the groundfloor of Kinder Kunst Labor. Placed in Altoona Park in Sankt Pölten this concrete and wood children’s museum by Schenker Salvi Weber has a triangular footprint and constrasting round windows in the interiors. These simple shapes and the natural apearance of the wooden facade inspired us to use the triangles, circles and plywood as leitmotives in our project. We were asked to provide a multi-sensory indoor environment for small children to have different physical activities and interactions.
Yet, it also had to address the issues related to the ongoing tendency of over-securising the spaces destinated for children. How far could we go in making a space less devoid of potential risks? Afer a number of iterations and negociations with TÜV we came across the idea of sloping plywood elements finished with semi-matte lacquer. With maximum height of 120 centimeters and angles no bigger than 15% they would make kids be cautious when climbing and walking in socks ontop of them. The modules form a montainous landscape with „caves” beneath the Surface connected via round openings.
Still, like all the elements in the room the landscape remains relatively abstract, since we wanted avoid being to explicit and therefore naive. The space offers also other objects cum activities: a so-called „forest of ropes” with a composition of thick ropes to climb, a round bowl filled with „space sand”, a set of steel profiles attached to one of the walls theough which water flows turning it into a „waterfall” and a three-level ramp finishing with an elevated niche as a hide-out.
Two walls are covered with whiteboard enabing kids to draw on them freely or during workshops. One wal lis finished with plywood with knobs sticking out of it for donut-alike yellow pillows to be attached to it. Archipelago is surrounded by a plywood platform for parents and care-givers to sit on while kids dive into the playscape.
Author: Jakub Szczęsny (www.szcz.com.pl), Karolina Potębska (www.karolinapotebska.com)
Collaboration: Rainer Stadlbauer (www.studio-itzo.com)
