With a cool and colourful schoolyard, the Ammanschool will be able to enjoy years to come
At the Ammanschool in Dordrecht, they wanted to renew the schoolyard with the theme ‘Cool and Colourful’. From submissions by several companies, BOERplay’s design ultimately emerged as the winner.
“The ‘cool and colourful’ theme was mainly chosen because this school has more boys than girls,” says Dennis van Veen, education advisor at BOERplay. “They are usually very active and like to run, cycle, skate, climb and this was something we took into account of in the choice of equipment.”
The design of the schoolyard as it originally stood consisted of several parts. “There was a separate front and back in the square. At the side, there was a small passage where you could walk from the back to the front. At the back there was already a big climbing equipment. They wanted something similar in front as well.”
Greening was not a priority
While many schools nowadays express a wish to green up the schoolyards, this was not specifically the case at the Ammanschool. “It’s nice that other focal points emerge for once,” Van Veen said. “Furthermore, no wooden playground equipment was used for this schoolyard, but instead recycled plastic playground equipment, in bright colours. These colours are also reflected on the fall surface. In addition, the use of colour is reflected in the swings and trampolines in the square.”
“At the back of the schoolyard, we created a track with a traffic square, stop signs, traffic lights, etc. We removed the threshold that originally devided the square into two parts, to create more unity and ensure that it is one big square where all children can play. At the original front of the square, we chose to facilitate more sports and games, with a seating circle also placed for the children to relax or watch the children playing. There is also a ping-pong table and two soccer areas, one with large goals and one with small goals.”
Pupils and neighbourhood satisfied
The renovated square is very much to their liking. Not only with the pupils of the Amman School, but also with children from the neighbourhood. “The schoolyard is public and therefore also accessible to children from the neighbourhood who are not pupils at the Amman School. After school, the square is occupied almost non-stop with children from the neighbourhood. That is obviously a wonderful compliment and also shows that the work we put into it has been more than rewarded,” Van Veen concludes.