Interviews met Taiga

The main principle and inspiration behind our design is the unique nature of the Urals, specifically the mixed forests where coniferous and deciduous trees thrive alongside mushrooms, bears, and insects. The core idea behind the project was to integrate this natural “DNA” into the urban environment to give back to children the living forest in a playhub format. We designed the space across two distinct scales: the Microworld and the Macroworld. In the Leaves and Ants zone toddlers can feel tiny between oversized shapes, playing within an effect of nature under a magnifying glass, improving their social skills and learning cooperation. The Macroworld represents the high forest, featuring trees, massive bears and mushrooms, vertical pathways, and bigger challenges. Here, the setting requires children to show physical grit, wait their turn on narrow bridges, learn where to yield or where to hold their ground. Modern urban environments are often overly safe, while in fact, providing calculated risk for children allows them to learn how to overcome fear and test the world's boundaries. It is absolutely vital for their psychological development, and can be done within the safe boundaries of meticulously engineered architecture. Ultimately, the nub is designed for children to grow within its borders, finding a new layer of complexity every time as they age, instead of outgrowing it in a single season. Finally, the project embraces "honest architecture" by refusing cheap, primitive bright colors in favor of an aesthetically sophisticated framework that takes children seriously as individuals fully capable of navigating complex emotions, routes, and real-time decisions.

Our primary focus in designing this work was to create an environment that naturally fosters social connections and neuroplasticity in children of all ages, achieved subtly through open play and direct physical experience. We specifically wanted to revive the lost tradition of spontaneous "backyard socialization," which we accomplished in the toddler zone by using an anthill metaphor with structures that gently nudge children toward collective cooperation, communication, and shared action. For older children, we aimed to introduce healthy risks to build assertiveness, self-confidence, and group negotiation skills. Additionally, we wanted to support cognitive flexibility and neuroplasticity by pairing contrasting materials and textures like warm timber and cool metal. Apart from that, we wanted to achieve true organic authenticity in visuals, ensuring that no two trees looked exactly alike. And finally, we aimed at creating single-post play structures of the greatest height we ever saw in Russian or international practice. There are plenty of multi-legged play towers out there, but a single-post structure of this scale is a genuinely unique engineering achievement: designing a monolithic, single-post structure that can safely handle loads from weather and full occupation of playing children.

This design was commissioned by S&P landscape studio, who approached us with the core theme of the Ural forest and the initial idea of using coniferous and deciduous trees, which we then took as our inspiration to fully design and realize the project's visual imagery. While our client acted as an exceptional collaborator — providing tight feedback and pushing us to refine the concepts until we achieved a more airy, transparent style for elements like the giant bears — the structural and artistic sculpting of the trees, wildlife, and natural motifs was handled entirely by our team. Ultimately, we pursued this specific concept to bring the authentic DNA of the Ural and Russian wilderness into an urban play space, turning their initial sketches into a deeply custom, cohesive landscape that celebrates our local flora and fauna.

The realization of this concept was one massive hurdle after another, beginning with a conceptual sketching phase that lasted for nearly a year and a long pause before detailed engineering could start. The core technical challenge layed in adapting the engineering to match the design, seamlessly fitting irregular hexagons together and marrying the internal load-bearing frame with the visual outer cladding, everything to maintain the aesthetic and calculated structural stability. Because we engineered the equipment from day one with a massive margin of safety for brutal regional wind, snow, and user weight, we faced major complications with the local soil conditions and foundation design, which required extensive technical simulations to ensure the ground could support a massive single-post structure under maximum capacity. Finally, our non-negotiable principle of not allowing on-site welding, forced our engineering and R&D departments to develop a modular frame system that was pre-fitted perfectly at the factory, allowing the entire multi-structural tower to be delivered in compact shipping dimensions and assembled seamlessly on-site. In terms of design, the most significant challenge was finding the exact key for styling and establishing a meaningful dialogue with the surrounding architecture, which required moving away from literal, semi-realistic forms that clashed with the site's topography. Through several intense iterations with the lead architect from S&P, we pushed past these dense, heavy forms to a meticulous balance of volume and negative space, ultimately arriving at a style of abstract eco-bionics with elements of polygonal parametricism. This shift toward abstraction intentionally leaves fewer prescriptive details, ensuring the forms don't dictate how to play but instead point a direction, leaving total freedom for interpretation and more room for a child's imagination.

The single most critical skill for a designer trying to build a high-quality product is their visual library: having a broad exposure to versatile design solutions they have seen to apply in new products. The second element is a cultivated sense of beauty, which relies on that same exposure and a strong team environment to intuitively understand what works, what is needed and how to express it visually. The third piece is a robust technical toolkit, which includes rapid sketching skills and proficiency in 3D modeling software to seamlessly articulate their thoughts. A designer simply cannot survive without these tools; having a million ideas bouncing around in your head means nothing if you lack the execution skills to translate those concepts from paper into reality, which is exactly why a strong technical hands-on capability is what ultimately brings a vision to life.

A successful design is, first and foremost, a simple design that can actually be built and deeply resonates with the people who use it. At the end of the day, the ultimate proof of success is high demand — seeing children constantly playing on the equipment and knowing that it is genuinely wanted in the real world. For us, successful design is also about winning over our fellow architects and our clients; having the people who drive the industry vote with their wallets, their orders, and their signed contracts in favor of our products and our design is really what defines a triumph.

We always have several massive projects cooking in the pipeline, and we are open to collaborations so your project could be the next one. Keep updated on our news, we are constantly releasing exciting new products that practically any architecture or landscape firm worldwide can easily integrate into their own projects. We build our equipment using vandal-resistant, and wear-proof materials engineered to withstand absolutely any climate on Earth—from the sub-zero temperatures of the North Pole to the intense humidity of the tropics.

Our primary focus in designing is to create an environment that naturally fosters social connections and neuroplasticity in children of all ages, achieved subtly through open play and direct physical experience. We specifically wanted to revive the lost tradition of spontaneous "backyard socialization," with structures that gently nudge children toward collective cooperation, communication, and shared action. For older children, we aim to introduce healthy risks to build assertiveness, self-confidence, and group negotiation skills. Additionally, we want to support cognitive flexibility and neuroplasticity by pairing contrasting materials and textures like warm timber and cool metal.

Our design process always starts with a core idea or a specific area we want to explore within children's play environments, which we outline through sketching and intensive brainstorming before developing it into a production-ready 3D model. At this concept stage we thoroughly analyze component costs, material choices, and manufacturing technologies so we can confidently present a viable design to our clients. From there, our structural engineering team takes over to generate the precise blueprints, technical documentation, and mechanical 3D models required for the production phase, where standard manufacturing processes turn the paperwork into physical equipment. Finally, the process culminates in on-site construction and installation, which is the most critical step of all; even the most meticulously designed structures can be ruined if the installation crews cut corners. That is why we treat this final phase with such vital importance: it ensures that the final user experience and visual appeal accurately reflect exactly what we envisioned during the concept and engineering phases, protecting us from costly mistakes at the finish line.

Our recent recognition by A'Design Award is a key milestone that marks our true debut in the global stage and a whole new chapter of international growth. On a personal and team level, this award is proof that a company from a relatively unknown town in the Ural Mountains can create unique play environments that gain serious global respect. This recognition serves as an incredible source of inspiration for our entire team, sending a powerful message that they are working on a premium, high-demand product capable of finding a place anywhere in the world and proving that, together, there is so much more we can achieve.

Taiga is a design and manufacturing firm specializing in high-quality outdoor play equipment and environments that facilitate children development. The company oversees the entire lifecycle of its products, from the initial conceptualization of play scenarios for diverse age groups to the installation of realised products. In this interview Vyacheslav Kobelev, Co-founder and Product Director, will share his insights on running the company.

First and foremost, I focus on visual clarity, ensuring that our products look simple yet striking by eliminating unnecessary details, joints, or fasteners, while keeping the entire structure safe and fully aligned with children's physiology to prevent any hazards. Aesthetics are non-negotiable, but designs must also be genuinely manufacturable, ensuring our core promise that the final physical product is completely indistinguishable from the initial rendering. Finally, as the industry evolves, we are balancing this creative and technical freedom with economic viability, shifting our focus toward optimizing resources, carbon footprints, and costs as a central pillar of our future work.

Seeing our designs realized brings an enormous sense of fulfillment, joy, and deep professional pride, especially knowing that our team can successfully pull off a project as architecturally and engineeringly complex as the Ural Forest. It is incredibly inspiring to realize that we can create something that will truly resonate with the community and leave a lasting legacy in our city, but that emotional reward is hard-earned through intense grit and technical execution. Delivering this project pushed us to our absolute limits across design, engineering, and logistics, requiring our skilled crews to operate heavy lifting machinery simultaneously in tight conditions to assemble intricate components at heights of 12 meters and up. Ultimately, conquering these immense structural challenges and seeing the final space come to life is exactly what fuels our ambition and inspires us to tackle even bolder concepts for our future projects.

A successful design is, first and foremost, a simple design that can actually be built and deeply resonates with the people who use it. At the end of the day, the ultimate proof of success is high demand — seeing children constantly playing on the equipment and knowing that it is genuinely wanted in the real world. For me personally, successful design is also about winning over our fellow architects and our clients; having the people who drive the industry vote with their wallets, their orders, and their signed contracts in favor of our products and our design is really what defines a triumph.

We live in the Urals, practically in the center of Russia, right on the border of Europe and Asia, and this unique geographic and cultural context brings distinct advantages and challenges to our design process. One major advantage of designing here is the rapidly evolving domestic market; local playground manufacturers have significantly stepped up their game and expanded their expertise, making domestic collaboration genuinely exciting where we once looked strictly at leading global practices. Additionally, the vast territories of our country mean we aren't constrained by land, allowing us to keep massive production processes within a single company, while having direct access to abundant, renewable natural forests provides us with the premium timber we rely on. Culturally, our historical context fuels an internal mindset: a deep need to do things exceptionally well and to be the absolute best in order to withstand competition. The primary downside is that not every domestic industry currently creates world-class products, but we are actively working to overcome this by aiming our resources toward ensuring our products represent the absolute best on the global stage, reaching far beyond Russia to bring joy to children all over the world.

When working with companies on serious, large-scale projects, we focus on delivering a turnkey, single-source experience that handles everything from the initial sketch right through to final delivery. This end-to-end involvement is one of the biggest advantages of working with us, as we oversee the entire project lifecycle under one roof: drafting the very first concept art, managing production, installing the finished playground on-site, and shaping the complete play environment. While we are occasionally brought in just for specific phases, our ideal approach is to provide this seamless, consolidated solution so the process remains completely streamlined for the client, allowing us to take full accountability for the high-quality results we deliver.

Our design process always starts with a core idea or a specific area we want to explore within children's play environments, which we outline through sketching and intensive brainstorming before developing it into a production-ready 3D model. At this concept stage we thoroughly analyze component costs, material choices, and manufacturing technologies so we can confidently present a viable design to our clients. From there, our structural engineering team takes over to generate the precise blueprints, technical documentation, and mechanical 3D models required for the production phase, where standard manufacturing processes turn the paperwork into physical equipment. Finally, the process culminates in on-site construction and installation, which is the most critical step of all; even the most meticulously designed structures can be ruined if the installation crews cut corners. That is why we treat this final phase with such vital importance: it ensures that the final user experience and visual appeal accurately reflect exactly what we envisioned during the concept and engineering phases, protecting us from costly mistakes at the finish line.

The single most critical skill for a designer trying to build a high-quality product is their visual library: having a broad exposure to versatile design solutions they have seen to apply in new products. The second element is a cultivated sense of beauty, which relies on that same exposure and a strong team environment to intuitively understand what works, what is needed and how to express it visually. The third piece is a robust technical toolkit, which includes rapid sketching skills and proficiency in 3D modeling software to seamlessly articulate their thoughts. A designer simply cannot survive without these tools; having a million ideas bouncing around in your head means nothing if you lack the execution skills to translate those concepts from paper into reality, which is exactly why a strong technical hands-on capability is what ultimately brings a vision to life.

Our plans for the future are to keep perfecting what we do and to create even more spectacular public spaces that will serve the community, cultivate a deeper sense of beauty, and put our brand on the global map. Our recent recognition by A'Design Award is a key milestone that marks our true debut in the global stage and a whole new chapter of international growth. On a personal and team level, this award is proof that a company from a relatively unknown town in the Ural Mountains can create unique play environments that gain serious global respect. This recognition serves as an incredible source of inspiration for our entire team, sending a powerful message that they are working on a premium, high-demand product capable of finding a place anywhere in the world and proving that, together, there is so much more we can achieve.

We always have several massive projects cooking in the pipeline, and we are open to collaborations so your project could be the next one. Keep updated on our news, we are constantly releasing exciting new products that practically any architecture or landscape firm worldwide can easily integrate into their own projects. We build our equipment using vandal-resistant, and wear-proof materials engineered to withstand absolutely any climate on Earth—from the sub-zero temperatures of the North Pole to the intense humidity of the tropics.

That defining moment emerged during the sketching phase. Initially, our designs leaned toward literal, semi-realistic forms, such as a direct tree shape or a realistic animal. However, we realized this literalism completely clashed with the river embankment's modern architecture. The forms also felt too heavy and lacked structural transparency. Through these abstract, irregular geometric forms, we created a landmark that is both stylised and natural at its core.

We solved this by designing the play hub as a continuous, unified ecosystem rather than a collection of isolated elements. For toddlers, the Ants and Leaves zone acts as a secure "microworld" where oversized structures foster early cooperation and physical training safely away from high-speed play. This area is distinctly divided from the "macroworld" of the massive Tree towers, where older children can tackle vertical challenges and controlled risks. The zones are accessible to children of any age, but separated by activities, so varying play dynamics do not cross each other, thus avoiding conflicts. In addition to that, through these layered, age-specific scenarios within a shared forest narrative, children find new levels of complexity to graduate into as they grow.

Parametric software was essential for marrying our irregular, asymmetrical Tree forms with rigorous engineering. Because these structures look different from every angle, every single hexagonal panel possesses a completely unique geometry. In contrast, the joints utilize a universal design to reduce the technical documentation and streamline production. As a result, the structures were built as a modular constructor set that was perfectly pre-fitted at our factory and then safely bolted together on-site without a single weld. Weather loads were calculated through simulations using different software, after which our engineers carefully designed enhanced main beams and distributed the weight loads across the foundation. This part of the project was revised several times to ensure the durability and safety of the structures.

We believe that for the international jury, the project stood out because it rejected generic playground formulas in favor of an authentic narrative wrapped in sophisticated abstract eco-bionics. We translated our local wilderness into a high-end geometric landscape, proving that a specific regional identity can be communicated through a universal architectural language. For the local residents of Yekaterinburg, the impact is deeply personal. They see their own natural heritage: the bears, spruces, and chanterelles, elevated into a world-class public landmark. By using genuine materials like larch wood instead of primitive bright plastics, we gave the city an iconic space that respects both their culture and their children.

A major challenge occurred during construction when we encountered severe complications with the local soil conditions. Because we were erecting the market's largest single-post play structures under tight site constraints, soil stability became a critical issue. We had to run technical simulations to guarantee the ground could support these massive towers under peak capacity, factoring in heavy crowds of children, snow, and wind. This forced us to upgrade our foundational design and optimize our modular load-bearing frame system. By reinforcing the main beams and enlarging the foundations beyond the norm, we transformed a challenging soil hazard into a triumph of structural integrity and safety.

We designed the Tree towers as an alternating sequence of closed spaces and open lattice structures. Inside, children navigate an internal spiral labyrinth, scaling narrow bridges and open lattice tunnels where they must build up the courage to take a step. Every climb can be rewarded with a fast slide from a great height that might seem risky to children, when in fact, we control the speed of the descent precisely through the angles of the slide's trajectory. The highest structures have a toddler-proof filter: the first step of the ladder is located higher than they can climb, while older children will not have an issue with it. Therefore, the structure invites only age-appropriate play. Ultimately, we aligned every dimension of the play elements strictly with safety standards and children's physiology, eliminating entrapment and falling risks. This is how we introduce a sense of risk and discovery in a completely safe and calculated environment.

From our experience, every playground is different. We work on all kinds of sites, from small residential complex gardens to public squares such as the one for Ural Forest. Not every playground needs direct visual imagery embedded in its core. For example, in the case of residential areas where the same children play every day, we prefer to set up universal and abstract equipment. The structures are able to adapt to different games every day, leaving space for children's imaginations: one day a rocket ship, the next day a dragon, and later a secret base. In the case of public parks and squares, the approach is unique to each individual project, depending primarily on the concept of the space within the larger architectural master plan. Sometimes our clients might need a subtle environment designed for the neural relaxation of children away from their fast-paced surroundings, while in other cases, like with Ural Forest, our partner S&P Studio planned a dominant landmark and attraction point. For these types of projects, we conduct research into the local culture, history, or fairy tales to reimagine well-known motifs, which are then developed further through dialogue with local representatives.

We hope Ural Forest proves that a children's playground deserves the same architectural rigor, structural ambition, and artistic honesty as any major public monument. We want to show the global design community that outdoor play environments can reject superficial, cheap, and oversaturated materials to become sophisticated public sculptures that are unified with the environment, not in opposition to it. Simultaneously, these spaces must function as true instruments of development, not just places to aimlessly pass the time: respecting children enough to trust them with controlled risk, offer diverse sensory feedback, and foster genuine socialization. Ultimately, embedding the local heritage of the Urals is what we wanted to share with the world, adding to its visual abundance and versatility.

The choice of materials comes from our 15+ years of experience building playground equipment. Stainless steel is the most resilient metal to corrosion and structural loads that can be sourced, and larch has the ability to harden over time, becoming stone-like. Apart from that, our larch wood is locally sourced in the Urals, making it the exact kind of wood that is naturally designed to withstand the conditions of the region. Our vast experience with these materials is what allows us to rely on them completely, knowing exactly how to avoid cracks in the wood and how to design welded structures. All Taiga products are made using these materials as our palette, along with stones, sand, pebbles, and ropes, so we are keen on this natural aesthetic. We believe that such an approach allows children to restore their connection with nature in a highly synthetic urban environment.

Today, children often grow up atomized: parents work in offices, and children spend a significant amount of time among unfamiliar adults and peers across disconnected locations. We want the playhub to function as a new social institution, so we focused on designing the space in a way that gently nudges children to face each other and play together. For example, in the narrow tunnels between the Trees, they would need to negotiate who should give way, and in the Ant zone, the pebble-pouring structures can be fully activated only through collaboration. Inside the Bears, communication pipes spark analog distance roleplay by connecting children separated by physical walls. Through this collective play, children develop not only social skills but also new neural pathways that support their capacity for learning and adaptation.