Recently, the “Cangzhou Grand Canal Ecological Restoration Demonstration Area” created by ZEHO ECO has officially opened to the public, welcoming the first group of citizens to see the new look of the Grand Canal’s “millennium culture”. The “Canal Children’s Playground” in the ecological restoration exhibition area, as the first canal themed cultural exploration playground in China, has also attracted many families to play here.
Bird's-eye view of the playground
Cangzhou Grand Canal Ecological Restoration Demonstration Area is in the southeast corner of the city. The canal, about 4 kilometers long, has always maintained its original ecological state, and the river course presents a unique “Ω” shaped bend.
Sculpture at the entrance of Cangzhou Grand Canal Ecological Restoration Demonstration Area
The canal children’s playground in the park meets the needs of recreational activities for all ages and improves the parent-child experience. ZEHO ECO hopes to build a unique canal themed cultural exploration park for the city based on the “exploration park” and with the “canal culture” as the core, so that children can explore the historical context of Cangzhou in their daily play and experience the philosophy of coexistence of human and nature.
Design sketch of the playground
The thick history and culture of the Grand Canal has inspired ZEHO to build a paradise in ecology: the Grand Canal promotes Cangzhou, and Wuqiao, Dongguang, Botou, Nanpi, Cangzhou, and Qingxian are evenly distributed on both sides of the canal, shaping a beaded urban pattern of Cangzhou. For thousands of years, the canal has changed the breath, sound, color and pulse of Cangzhou city with its grand vision. Canal culture, such as hydraulics, water transport, acrobatics, martial arts and folk customs, has been accumulated and inherited here.
The whole park site is a “condensed” Cangzhou section canal, which is diverting water into the park with ecology, and vividly represents the symbiotic relationship between Cangzhou and the canal with tortuous water flow; Taking water as the vein, it connects the six nodes of the “stacking stage”, “hydraulic craftworker”, “transportation berthing”, “canal city center”, “xiaoya youyou” and “small handle type field” in a beaded way; Based on the text, cultural elements are extracted in a differentiated way, so that children can play around a city in a paradise, and the surprises of exploration and growth experience are included in the story of the Cangzhou Canal.
The entrance of the playground
01 Stacking Stage: a fun skill area with acrobatic culture as the core
Historically, the commercial prosperity of the canal gave Wuqiao acrobats a stage to live on. The stacked stage area showed the legend of the canal to children, allowing them to cultivate friendship with other children in role playing and physical exercise.
Based on the classic shape of acrobatic folding people, the acrobatic folding height is designed as a slide park, which also becomes a fun landscape at the entrance of the playground.
Acrobatics stacked high
Acrobatics training card is a hollow device with acrobatic modeling as its element. Only by following the hollow posture can you successfully cross the wall.
Acrobatic training card
The Sky Breaking Horn is a sound transmission interactive device based on the Wuqiao acrobatic stunt “Blowing the Sky”, which allows children to feel the wonder of sound transmission.
Sky Breaking Horn
02 Hydraulic Craftworker: a team cooperation area with hydraulic culture as the core
The ingenuity of the water conservancy constructors made the lime soil and rice slurry rammed into a hundred-year-old glutinous rice dam, realizing “three bends and one gate” to slow down the water flow. The hydraulic craftworker’s area shows the wisdom of the canal. Through playing with sand and water, the interaction between childlike innocence and natural elements can be opened, so that children and parents can learn the scientific knowledge of the ancient canal project in a puzzle game.
The big turn is a raised flow tray, which reflects the hydraulic technology of “three bends to one gate”. Put the paper boat on the flow tray, and you can travel through the small boat to feel the pulsation of the water flow.
Big turn
Various types of hydraulic facilities are set in the water play space, including rotary water intakes, sluices, waterwheels, dry sprays, etc., so that children can enjoy childlike fun while playing.
Rotary water intake
Rotary waterwheel
Archimedes water intake
Water playing skit
03 Transportation Berthing: an inspiring and creative area with water transportation culture as the core
The white and pure sea salt, Yuhe cotton and other abundant products are transported from Botou to Henan from north to north. The sound of the ships is filled with the fireworks of the canal. The Transportation Berthing shows the canal transportation culture, breaks the traditional learning mode, and stimulates children’s curiosity and creativity through parent-child interaction.
Sand Paradise simulates salt with sand to reproduce the scene of salt transportation, so that children can experience fun play methods such as digging, transporting, and drying sand.
Sand Paradise
Salt Mining Workshop
Salt scraper
The cotton bell swing is an interesting combination swing made of Yunhe cotton. The swinging swing moves all the worries and unhappy memories out of the sky with the swing, and enjoys the wonderful parent-child time in advance and retreat.
Cotton boll swing
04 Canal City Center: a self exploration area centered on the relationship between the city and the river
Looking at the rippling canal, the grand scene of the small south gate, which used to be “the canal flows around the wall, tall masts and big helms, long and short poles, and thousands of ships from south to north”, looms in front of us. The Canal City Center shows the nourishment of the canal, which enables children to challenge and break through in complex spaces and awaken their independent consciousness, curiosity and exploration ability in adventure games.
The large rudder boat is based on the image of a wine carrying ship, integrated with multiple climbing facilities such as rope net climbing and large slide. Its appearance is decorated with Chinese traditional dragon patterns, and the overall color is yellow and brown, reflecting the retro charm of the Canal City. The head of the bow shows the majestic momentum of the large rudder ship. The high mast is full of flags, and the large slide on the high platform shuttles to the sand pool, arousing the desire of adults and children to explore!
Large rudder ship
With Cangzhou City Wall as the image element, the adventure building is integrated with large-scale wall climbing facilities such as rock climbing, rope net, etc. The interior is connected with vertical drill net, and the exterior is equipped with walking steps for parents to enter the second floor of the building for nursing.
Adventure Building
05 Xiaoya Youyou: an interactive science popularization area centered on the culture of the Book of Songs
Meet the more ancient Book of Songs at the edge of the ancient canal, and the elegance of the canal has been accumulated in the thousand years of time passed through the vegetation. Xiaoya Youyou District displays the culture of the Book of Songs deposited by the canal, allowing children to perceive the world and promote the development of five senses through balance training, color cognition, spatial cognition and other ways.
Flip over wall is a flip wall with animal and plant patterns, the Book of Songs and allusion knowledge cards. Children can popularize science and interact through flip cards.
Flip over wall
Children’s facilities such as roller coasters and trampolines enrich the fun of the area, allowing children to have fun and interactive experience while learning knowledge.
Shake Fighter
Trampoline
06 Small Handle Type Field: an adventure challenge area with martial arts culture as the core
The small handle type field shows the martial arts style of the canal, integrates martial arts features into the challenge project, and cultivates children’s sports skills.
The Mad Devil Staff Group extracts all kinds of staff movements from the Mad Devil Staff Technique in Qingxian County to form an adventure log climbing facility, allowing children to complete self challenges in sports.
Mad Devil Staff Group
Plum stakes, balance beams, wire ropes and other equipment used in Qingxian martial arts to exercise balance ability are combined to form a combination of exercise facilities, which can exercise the children’s physical coordination and balance ability in game training.
Exercise combination facilities
Cangzhou Canal Children’s Playground tries to restore the traditional culture and respect the original environment. Integrate the drainage system, reproduce the canal culture in a form close to nature, and present interesting content with plain materials; In the way of teaching through fun, let children cultivate the sense of teamwork, independent adventure and curiosity in the process of happy play, and learn and grow in happiness.
ZEHO ECO Industry Operation is committed to transforming the understanding and accumulation of traditional culture and natural environment into silent language, integrating cultural and scientific popularization, natural exploration, interactive experience, physical expansion and parent-child play, bringing sustainable happiness education to children, and empowering urban green ecological space with the “Park+” model. Each theme park will become a field for children to experience, exercise, learn and comprehend deeply, so that children can feel the childhood fun of the colorful world in the park.