120. Bethwin Road Adventure Playground

Funded by a grant from Julia and Hans Rousing Trust, we worked alongside Black Butter Records to rebuild, redesign and expand on an amazing childrens youth centre located in Camberwell, South East London.

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In the early 1970s A group of local people including the local Vicar and reps of Wyndham & Castlemead Tenants’ identified the need for a place for local children and young people to meet, play and exercise safely.

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The playground quickly became an integral feature of the local community providing after-school and Saturday activities, mainly sports and arts and crafts, and summer playschemes every year with 5 days of activities and outings.

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As most of the families involved with the charity  live in the social housing estates surrounding the playground the most important function of the playground is to provide our children with space to get out of their often-over-crowded flats and have space to run, climb, swing, ride bikes, meet friends, play games and generally have fun and keep fit.

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After organising a volunteer day to repaint and clear the playground along with our  multidisciplinary team, Lipley and Parker were able to offer their skills to help on a number of works at Bethwin Adventure Playground.

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A number of areas of repair and exciting new ideas have been outlined to us by the Playground Trust:

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To repair the broken, damaged and dangerous playground equipment.

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Building a forest school in a currently unused area of the site. This would be a simple covered area that would be used by local school groups on days out as well as the children using the trust.

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Rebuilding the roof on the ‘cafe' - a communal Covid safe space that the children love spending time in making simple meals and eating the food provided by the trust.

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Build a covered lean to next to the central building in the complex. What Bethwin have said would make a massive difference would be the construction of a permanent covered area just off the main building. This would create a COVID safe outdoor space that could be used all year around, drastically increasing the amount of sheltered space during rainy days in the winter and hot sunny summer days, where the children can play games, eat, relax or meet with mentors etc.

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Decorate and reorganise the interior space of the central building. Create functional storage solutions to maximise efficiency of the office, teaching space and cooking areas.

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While working through these elements we would like to take the time to involve the children in the process as well as teaching them about design and building, a path of which very few of them will have had the opportunity to explore.