Highton Child & Family Centre Wins Best Playspace Under $0.5M!

Congratulations to our friends at Ochre Landscape and Brand Architects for winning the Best Playscape Under $0.5 Million award for Highton Child & Family Centre at the Parks & Leisure Australia 2020 Awards of Excellence (VIC/TAS).

Combining both playful and practical elements, the design focuses on creating an engaging and sustainable outdoor area that will grow and evolve as the plants mature.

The unique and child-friendly design incorporates several play features including:

  • Fort overlooking Highton
  • Swings and playground
  • Large sandpit
  • Slide mound that features deck bells which ring when children tap them with their feet

The City of Greater Geelong project boasts sustainability at every level and was awarded a 6 Star Green Star rating denoting World Leadership in sustainable design and construction. So, ensuring sustainable building materials and practices involved was of the utmost importance. Careful consideration led the teams at Ochre and Brand to incorporate:

  • Use of recycled timber
  • Use of low carbon concentrate concrete
  • Veggies gardens
  • S-Bend shaped sandpit with strategically places trees to keep the sandpit cool and shaded
  • Boston Ivy on the external walls of the building to assist in temperature control and acts as living insulation

Working on the Highton Child & Family Centre with teams at Ochre and Brand was such a pleasure and seeing their vision come to (literal) life before our eyes was incredible.

Congratulations – we can’t wait to work with Brand & Ochre again to create more awesome spaces!