Nantong, Jiangsu, China

Designed by MBDI for China Merchants Group, this new 1468m² children’s park located in the Nantong Jing Yuan area is designed as a play space in the center of the community where the wind comes from the valley, guiding the children into the valley, and the landscape in front of them suddenly becomes open and bright. 

The orange base represents vitality, health, and cheerfulness, just like a ray of sunshine scattered into the valley. 

The inner world of children is colorful and bright colors can attract children’s attention and bring them happy emotions.

The designers took “valley” as the theme, with the rich green landscape in the community and the continuation of the spatial landscape of the concept of Forest Living, hoping to give the children’s playground with the characteristics of “nature, exploration, spirituality.”

It is hoped that the children’s playground can be endowed with the characteristics of “nature, exploration and dynamism” to release the innocence of children and let them feel their childhood time in the unrestrained natural space.

The whole park adopts a free-loop game mode with a soft-scene boundary as the main feature, creating both safe and variably rich venues for all-age children, which can link various functional partitions and derive many different versions of touring line experience paths. 

There are play devices suitable for children of all ages, creating a safe and challenging play environment for children.

The children’s area has a variety of facilities suitable for children to play, such as swings, rockers, trampolines, etc. 

The story-painted wall cleverly separates the play space from the surrounding architecture and landscape. 

The circular guide-line divides the functional partitions while creating an atmosphere of both enclosure and no sense of boundaries, and sets up a parental care rest area to increase parent-child interaction and also allow children to feel a full sense of security while playing.

The children’s happy laughter echoes in the valley, and when they are tired of playing, they can play the sound transmission game on the hill, and convey each other’s little secrets, sharing the happy sounds in the quiet valley, and also enhancing the children’s perception and understanding of the objective world from the auditory aspect.

The mysterious valley caves lead to the unknown world, which is full of exploration and challenges. 

Children can shuttle through a bulging hill at will, and the buffer zone incorporates the natural form of the hill, and through drilling and crawling, children develop their limb and trunk muscle strength and enhance the flexibility of their movements.

A gallery bridge in the shuttle stands between the hills, children can reach the middle of the valley through the gallery bridge, a huge tree towering out of it, the platform in the cave seems to stand in the clouds, where children can climb, run, play, and experience the sense of wonder brought by exploration.

By combining outdoor expansion with functional facilities such as drilling holes, climbing nets, corridors, and slides, children can quickly move from one horizontal height to another, providing them with more space and conditions for sharing, mobilizing their enthusiasm and exploration, and enhancing their minds and confidence.

A sunshine slide was opened on the hill, and the children slid down the sunshine slide, which was very beautiful. 

The small white flowers at the bottom of the hill attracted the children’s attention, and the sound of drumming on the surface of the flowers aroused their curiosity about new things.

Spiral slide compared to the traditional slide more exciting and challenging, more suitable for older children to play, but also more able to test the child’s body balance and coordination, in the fast slide down at the same time can also feel the super exciting sensory experience.

The architects provided a reasonable design of children’s play environment so that they can learn in the game so that education is fun. 

Children can exercise, develop interest and increase boldness in the activity, and develop a spirit of exploration and courage to overcome difficulties in the game. 

This environment encourages children to make their own choices and will make children feel safe, valued, challenging, competitive, and confident.

Project: Nantong Investment–Jing Yuan Children’s Park
Architects: MBDI
General Contractors: MBDI MUXI parent-child
Client: China Merchants Group