Golden A' Design Award in Landscape Planning and Garden Design Goes to Play Garden for Yuecheng Kindergarten Landscape Planning and Garden Design by Ecoland

Ecoland recognized for landscape planning and garden design by the international grand jury of the 2020 - 2021 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 23, 2021 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Play Garden for Yuecheng Kindergarten Landscape Planning and Garden Design by Ecoland, designed for ECOLAND Planning and Design Corp., has been granted the Golden A' Design Award in the Landscape Planning and Garden Design category. The recognition forms part of the 2020 - 2021 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

The Golden A' Design Award Explained

The Gold A' Design Award is granted to designs that demonstrate a high level of innovation and a significant impact on their intended audience. Recognized as a major achievement by the A' Design Awards, these designs are characterized by their visionary approach and the exceptional skill of their creators. Winners of the Gold A' Design Award are noted for their ability to push the envelope in art, science, design, and technology, delivering solutions that not only meet but exceed expectations. These designs serve as benchmarks for excellence, encouraging further innovation and inspiring future generations of designers.

More About Play Garden for Yuecheng Kindergarten Landscape Planning and Garden Design

Play Garden for Yuecheng Kindergarten is a rooftop play landscape in Chaoyang District, Beijing, China. The play area sits on the roof of a new kindergarten building that wraps around a preserved historic courtyard and its ancient trees. Raising the play space allowed open room to run and climb on a very tight site. The roof is finished with a soft plastic surface in color bands that change from rich red at the base to soft cream at the peaks, showing changes in elevation. Hills, circular light wells and a looping tricycle track support active play and discovery.

Award Record

With this recognition, Ecoland is a winner of 2 A' Design Awards. The awards were granted in the 2020 - 2021 edition of the A' Design Award & Competition.

About the A' Landscape Planning and Garden Design Award

The A' Landscape Design Award is an international landscape design competition recognizing good landscape designs by leading architects and designers worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to landscape designers, urban planners, garden designers and municipalities from all countries. Typical entries include landscape designs, public parks, residential gardens, urban plazas, campus designs and green roofs. The awarded landscape designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/landscape-design

About A' Design Award & Competition

Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Winner Page: https://designers.org/120780
A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/120780
Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!120780
Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/298592
Further Information from the Laureate: http://www.ecoland-plan.com/

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project: Play Garden for Yuecheng Kindergarten Landscape Planning and Garden Design
Function: Landscape Planning and Garden Design
Category: Landscape Planning and Garden Design
Discipline: Spatial Design
Industry: Architecture and Sustainability
Colors: Salmon, Brown, Sienna, Dark Slate Gray and Saddle Brown
Images: 5
Client: ECOLAND Planning and Design Corp.

The Recognition

Laureate: Ecoland
Country: China
Recognition: Golden A' Design Award
Edition: 2020 - 2021
Design ID: #120780

Credits

Team: William Vince Abercrombie, Xiaolin Xu, David Yuezhong Chen, Xuesong Li, Yanhong Tang, Huiqun Xu, Fanyu Yan, Tian He, Jianjun Hu, Shuang Zhao
Image Credits: Arch-Exist Photograph, Contrast，2020; Arch-Exist Photography/Ecoland Planning and Design Corp., Tactile, 2020; Arch-Exist Photograph, Shade Pockets, 2020; Arch-Exist Photograph/Ecoland Planning and Design Corp.，Experimental Garden, 2020; Arch-Exist Photograph, Bird’s Eye View, 2020

Design Details

Unique Properties: The bold rooftop playground atop the Yuecheng Kindergarten, is a new outdoor discovery area for an international kindergarten institution that aims to encourage early childhood learning and appreciation of nature during play. The landscape architects worked closely with the architects to utilize the contemporary 43,800 square foot roof that is perfectly attuned to top off the newly constructed annex building to the kindergarten, enveloping a historic courtyard on site.
Inspiration: Discovery, imagination, and exploration were key concepts in expressing the design intent for the rooftop. The design immerses the young children into a variety of outdoor experiences that include inquiry-focused learning and play. Meanwhile, the openness of the traditional courtyards provided inspiration in the new contemporary building for three ''Bubbles''that envelope existing ancient trees and provide important connection points between the ground level and the roof play area.
Research: The lively roof atop the Yuecheng Kindergarten, located in a densely urban residential area of Beijing, China, is a unique and fresh concept in early childhood education outdoor play facilities. The 99,830 square foot site itself is unique. It is comprised of an old courtyard home carefully preserved from the Qing Dynasty and a modern three-story office building built in the 1990s. The new one-story kindergarten building, interwoven between the historic and contemporary buildings, fills out the entire site. The traditional courtyard home preserved in the center of the new construction was built as a gift for a Qing dynasty Emperor’s favorite nanny.
Challenge: The landscape architects were involved early in the conceptual process of the project, collaborating with the architects on how best to use this site. With the building footprint utilizing most of the site area, little room was left for outdoor activity areas for the children attending the school. It was decided to go up and let the roof top of the newly constructed building create an expansive and imaginative play space for the 400 school children. The determination of placing open play spaces on the roof lead to an inundation of imaginative ideas and designs.
Realization and Technology: The innovative decision to elevate the play space to the roof tops accomplished the goal of preserving the integrity of the existing historical courtyard building, respecting the memory of the site, while providing children valuable space to play and run freely within the very tight constraints of the site.
Operation and Interaction: The roof area offers different zones for play, a dominant stylized motif unites the entire area as a singular space. The subtly undulating forms are punctuated by color bands that changes color as the landform elevation increase. The colors transform from a rich red at the base level up to a soft cream color on the peaks of the landforms. This approach is not only aesthetically appealing but also functions as a visual learning tool for the children, illustrating in a fundamental way, topography and changes in elevation.
Project Duration and Location: The project started in April 2017, and was completed in 2019. It is located in Chaoyang District, Beijing, China.
Specifications: The project covers a landscape area of about 9,275.14 square meters. The ground floor of the landscape area is mainly paved with 200×100×50cm gray permeable bricks, and the edges are finished with 200×200×50cm machine-cut sesame gray granite. The roof area uses edible-grade plastic ground as the paving material. The plastic material is environmentally friendly, and the upper and lower layers are closely adhered, and are not easy to deform and collapse.
Keywords: Kindergarten, Culture, Play Area Design, Rooftop Garden，History Heritage