St Peters Primary School, East Keilor

Stage 1 of the Gds 3-6 playground upgrade is now complete!

With the school being adequately resourced in terms of active play zones, our brief was to enrich an area of the existing school ground as a quiet play space with a focus on socialising and creative play. This space included an extensive section of concrete which was required to stay as part of the brief.

The end result is a quiet play area complete with informal seating in the form of rocks and tractor tyres, a synthetic turf checkers/chess board which doubles as more informal seating when a checkers game is not in session and a decked stage area. The stage is designed to 4kPa and will hold an entire classroom if need be, becoming an outdoor classroom or a performance stage depending on the need.
It is all abilities compliant and built out of Modwood to save the school time and money on maintenance down the track. Six picnic tables are on order for the refurbished gazebos providing additional seating and meeting places for the children.

Upright cypress pine sleeper walls help enclose the area from the adjacent carpark and will hold plaques which may be relocated in future.

A planting plan has been prepared with soft landscaping to be completed by the school community in Autumn 2016. This will bring much needed colour and softness to the space.

It's a big thumbs up from the kids!

Planning will now commence on the Stage 2 which will hopefully incorporate a formal play equipment piece for upper body strength and coordination for Gds 3-6.

2015 in a wrap

It was a great year for KLG Landscapes. We expanded our play space portfolio with the design of the Terang Children's Centre in western Victoria. This predominantly farming community were keen for the green field site to follow nature based play design principles. It was a joy to design a site that integrated a large rock edged sandpit, bamboo grove, digging patch, tunnel/climbing mound, performance stage, Melaleuca grove and ample open space which teachers and children will be able to transform at will. This exciting space will be open in Jan 2016.

Apex Park in Camperdown had its official launch in November 2015 following 3 years of community work and fundraising to realise the vision mapped out in 2012. Congratulations to community of Camperdown for your dedication and hard work to achieve a space which caters for the entire community and is a show case for the township.

Teaming up with LMH Consulting has been very rewarding with achievements in 2015 being awarded the Lake Colac Masterplan, Noosaville dog park concept, Maroondah dog park concept, and Inglewood Playground concept.

We saw the transformation of the Holy Cross playground in New Gisborne and will see the playground at St Peters in East Keilor undergo construction in Jan 2016 with a custom stage designed to hold an entire class, chess set and informal seating.

It has been a great year and I look forward to 2016 being filled with the sound of adults and children playing, and another year of finding solace in the beauty of a leaf, the shadows cast by trees, the bees on the flowers and the graceful flittering of the honey eaters in my own garden.

Happy New Year to you all!