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Perth Zoo’s new playground has been recognised with an award celebrating Western Australia’s best landscape architecture
Tom Anstey | Planet Attractions | 31 May 2024
The playground opened to the public late last year Credit: Perth Zoo
A new playground at Perth Zoo in Australia has been recognised with an award celebrating the region’s best landscape architecture.
The WA State Awards, hosted by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), handed the Award of Excellence in the Play Spaces category to architects Hassell for its design of the new Perth Zoo Playground.
The playground features a misting cloud deck with an accessible bridge, an endangered Numbat play sculpture, Cockatoo models flying overhead and an engaging Gibbon mimicry experience. Other highlights include a 40m (131ft) rope tunnel - one of the country’s longest - and overhead brachiating ropes.
According to Hassell, the playground addresses the site’s complex topography and existing mature trees and transforms what was a previously complicated and unsightly space.
“This is play space design at its best: functional, fun and just that little bit magical too,” said the judging panel.
“The design is strongly linked with the character of the site, celebrates local fauna and offers moments of delight, intrigue, danger and pause. Robust materials and a diversity of play opportunities connect seamlessly with adjacent functions – including alfresco dining – in a delightful and whimsical manner that is engaging and bespoke.”
All winners at the State Awards level proceed to the National Landscape Architecture Awards held later this year.
The playground and wider café precinct, playground and function centre represents the first step in a AUS$51m (US$32m, €30.1m, £25.9m) investment from the Australian government into the attraction.
The zoo also recently started work on an AUS$11.7m (US$7.8m, €7.1m, £6.1m) project that will introduce a state-of-the-art gibbon habitat - the latest phase of development in the animal attraction’s multi-year, multi-million dollar transformation.
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