Playscape | Roots

This section of Roots has the main aim of letting the citizens interact with the landscape. Hamiltonhill, where Playscape is proposed, is a neighbourhood which is facing many challenges. It has been modified multiple times, and parts of it are highly neglected and in a state of abandonment. Playscape wants to turn this state around and propose multiple pockets of activities and habitat where both the citizens and the wildlife can thrive.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a great stress has been put into thinking how to be more local and stay healthy within a local area.

Glasgow Roots proposed a larger multigenerational urban park accessible and rich in activities and habitats.

Spatiality and Materials

Forest Installations

The COVID-19 pandemic caused massive disruptions, human and animal pain, general turmoil. Besides, it forced the human community into reconsidering what is it really important in our lives, and especially the importance of local green spaces. “We seek at once the benefits of biophilia by seeing, touching, hearing the wildness of nature, and respite from the daily news of infection and death” (Tabb, 2021)

The Playscape’s Forest Installations aim at allowing the citizens to walk and interact in condition of immersive nature. The interaction element is paramount in this section of the proposal, as it gives multiple scopes to the area.

For the forest to be planted and start growing, the soil has to be prepared first. One meter of soil has to be removed, cleaned and mixed with organic matter-rich soil. The forest planting will be done around the Forest Installations so that the vegetation will grow organically around the structures.

Again the woods are odorous, the lark

Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray

That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,

Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.

After long rainy afternoons an hour

Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings

Them at the windows in a radiant shower,

And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.

Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep

By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;

And cradled in the branches, hidden deep

In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.