Dunes playground

The Dunes Playground on Malaya Ordynka 19 in Moscow is a 100-square-metre play installation completed in 2019 for Sminex, by Druzhba Bureau, Bella Filatova, Anna Rodionova, Anastasia Rychkova, Alexandra Chertkova, Maria Gulida and Elena Mitrofanova, with engineering by Horizon, construction by Legato and lighting by Culture of Light. The design draws on the memory of children who, playing on a court every day, invent their own themes: a submarine, sand dunes, a burrow for garden animals, a hobbit valley. The imaginative range belongs entirely to the child, not to a prescribed playground programme. On a 100-square-metre site, one swing, a small carousel and a sandbox are the standard package; but if the designer understands how children perceive the world, the same small square can become an entire world. The installation invites active, physical interaction with the equipment inside and around the sculptural forms, treating the playground not as a fixed itinerary but as a stage on which children continuously re-choreograph their own narratives.