p-tav-page2 — Alistair Lambert

Alistair Lambert

’Tangram Play Landscape’ - A public play area based on the geometry of the ancient Chinese Tangram Puzzle.

Commissioned as a space that adults and children could enjoy.

Tavistock Gardens, London W1. Oak sleepers, cast concrete, marble pebbles, concrete paving, coloured rubber surfacing, Kee Klamp tubular steel.
Commissioned by Notting Hill Housing Trust and The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea . 2002.
Winner of the Kensington and Chelsea Environmental Improvement Award 2002.

p-tangram-gal

The climbing frame and rubber surface used the shapes of the tangram and incorporated a slide pole and different sizes of rung.

The blocks were cast ssing marble and concrete.

The blocks accomodated all sizes of people to sit and meet.

Tactile timber blocks.

The big fish emerges from the tilted ground to chase the littel fish embedded in the flat paving (visible behind).

Jaws

The Tangram puzzle is a square divided into seven geometric shapes. With it an huge variety of forms, figurative and abstract, can be created.

Development of the Tangram theme

The Tangram puzzle

The space for the play area was a triangle , that I divided into different areas, using the Tangram as an underlying theme.

Of the infinite variety of shapes that can be made I chose fishes.

Pupils at Tavistock Primary school nearby to the park worked with the Tangram.

Tavistock 18.jpg

Sea creature designs by pupils at a local primary School were incorporated into the paving.

The playground was squeezed into a section of an urban park and made clever use of the available space.

Opening event