Bicentennial Children’s Park
Santiago, Chile · 2012
Photo · Photo by Cristobal Palma
A precedent for integrating play infrastructure directly into steep topography, using repeating concrete stairs and slides to turn a hillside into an active public park.
- What we like about this project
- The sheer quantity of parallel slides, turning a simple playground element into a massive landscape feature.
Materials
- concrete
- steel
- gravel
- native-planting
- soil
Visual identifiers
- hillside-slides
- terraced-playground
- concrete-stairs
- interactive-landscape
Style tags
- functionalist
- topographic
- social-infrastructure
Visual tags
- public-park
- play-landscape
- topography
- terrace
- child-friendly
- inclusive-design
- Geometry
- A steeply terraced hillside structured with repeating concrete staircases and parallel metal slides that follow the natural slope.
- Structural guess
- Concrete retaining walls and precast stair/slide units anchored into the hillside
- Spatial scale
- Large-scale public park infrastructure designed specifically to human and child scale.
- Lighting
- Warm, low-angle late afternoon sunlight casting long shadows across the foreground and highlighting the terraced slope.
- Atmosphere
- Energetic and playful, with warm sunlight washing over a bustling public hillside.
- Environmental context
- A public park built on a dry, vegetated hillside in Santiago, Chile, with power lines and a ridge path visible at the top.
- Spatial experience
- The design transforms a steep, difficult hillside into an interactive, climbable landscape where children navigate vertical levels via stairs and slide back down.
- Composition rhythm
- A rhythmic grid of parallel slides and stairs stepping up the hillside, interspersed with young trees.
- Style reading
- Functionalist landscape infrastructure
- Program
- Children's public park and playground
- Perspective
- Aerial/Site
- Discipline
- landscape
- Materials
- concrete, steel, gravel, native-planting, soil
- Visual identifiers
- hillside-slides, terraced-playground, concrete-stairs, interactive-landscape
- Style tags
- functionalist, topographic, social-infrastructure
- Visual tags
- public-park, play-landscape, topography, terrace, child-friendly, inclusive-design
- Geometry
- A steeply terraced hillside structured with repeating concrete staircases and parallel metal slides that follow the natural slope.
- Structural guess
- Concrete retaining walls and precast stair/slide units anchored into the hillside
- Spatial scale
- Large-scale public park infrastructure designed specifically to human and child scale.
- Lighting
- Warm, low-angle late afternoon sunlight casting long shadows across the foreground and highlighting the terraced slope.
- Atmosphere
- Energetic and playful, with warm sunlight washing over a bustling public hillside.
- Environmental context
- A public park built on a dry, vegetated hillside in Santiago, Chile, with power lines and a ridge path visible at the top.
- Spatial experience
- The design transforms a steep, difficult hillside into an interactive, climbable landscape where children navigate vertical levels via stairs and slide back down.
- Composition rhythm
- A rhythmic grid of parallel slides and stairs stepping up the hillside, interspersed with young trees.
- Style reading
- Functionalist landscape infrastructure
- Program
- Children's public park and playground
- Perspective
- Aerial/Site
- Discipline
- landscape