Play

We created play moment throughout the Expo 2020 site, and we worked with Danish playground manufacturer Monstrum to create some exciting, sustainable, wooden structures. The playgrounds are inspired by our Expo2020 theme and sub-themes. They are located in the AL Forsan and Jubilee parks. We worked with Danish playground manufacturer Monstrum to create these exciting, sustainable, wooden structures. Our brief to them included the Expo 2020 sub-themes – Opportunity, Mobility and Sustainability. Rashid’s Adventure Playground is located in Jubilee Park and takes thematic cues from Sustainability and Mobility sub-themes. The main feature is a giant whale that children can climb up into and slide out. Latifa’s Adventure Playground is located in Al Forsan and is inspired by Opportunity and Mobility Sub-themes with additional inspiration from the success of the UAE’s Hope probe to Mars. This playground is the larger of the two and built around the idea of a space city, featuring space theme structures that children can explore. In the spirit of mobility, we worked with PavenGen who make paving that can generate electricity simply by being walked on. To showcase this futuristic and sustainable technology we conceptualized, designed and built a video game with PaveGen that included Rashid and Latifa mascot characters with a user interface that took children on a journey into space. There are several of these games around the playground and each one is two-player. Children need to run on the spot, jump up and down or walk fast to generate energy to launch a rocket ship into space. The game has an educational element, visualized on the interface; how much energy has been created, how far the rocket has climbed, what it is passing by (like the International Space Station, the moon, the UAE hope probe, Mars, etc). We wanted to combine physical play with digital play and integrate them into a playground of the future environment.