Floating Playground Structure

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Design for a floating playground for children to play as a solution to gain tourist attraction at Beimen, Tainan. Included was the exploration of materials, reusable materials, and effective use of spaces. With the water element from the site, the floating playground implants a "water" slide to add an interactive dialogue between visitors and children. Applying wood as the overall structure, the form blends with the natural landscape as well as the coast of Beimen.

Site Analysis

The local area of Beimen (北門) is mainly tourism industry. After analyzing the site, several problems were found:

1. The current installations are mainly for young people, the age group of the elderly and children are ignored.
2. Installations and buildings have not been well planned for follow-up maintenance, causing facades to gradually fade in sun exposure.

3. Scarcity of shading areas & gap between pavilions set around the lake is large, reducing the desire of tourists to stay in the area.

There are only three pavilions around the lake, and the walking distance between each pavilion can be up to 6 minutes, which is unfriendly to tourists. Therefore, we decided to put the placement of the wooden structure with the goal of allowing people to reach a new shelter within at least three minutes of walking. If we place our wooden structure on the red square as shown in the picture , we can achieve the goal.

Design Concept

Parent-child Interactive Floating Structure:

- Children Playground: climbing rope ladder & slide
- Rest and shade: provide a shelter to enjoy the lake scenery

There is a lack of interactive facilities at Beiman, which most of them are for taking pictures. Therefore, we hope that our structure will not only provide a resting place but also drive different parent-child interaction activities. At the same time, the floating structure provide a feeling of water fluctuations, achieving the purpose of being hydrophilic.

Space Flow Arrangement

The moving line of the device is relatively simple on the left side, passing through the lower space of the slide, and entering the resting seat for rest and staying. On the right side of the device, we put a vertical ladder to allow children to freely move and play in this area.

Structural drawing

Hydro-Elastic Analysis

Use MATLAB to simulate the response of the floating body under load under different conditions, so as to make countermeasures against the number of people to achieve a certain degree of safety.
Safety Inspection Standard:
1. At least 9 people need to bear the weight (assuming one person weighs 60kg, multiply the safety factor 1.1 when calculating)
2. In extreme conditions, the position of the load center must not touch the 1.8m platform