Seahorse by 100architects (Shanghai)

Childhood Dream Sea Horse is a water play park recently designed by 100architects for the public area of a new residential compound in Chongqing. The surrounding public area already includes a swimming pool, and this addition is a children's water playscape intended to foster entertainment and social interaction among the community's children. Following the client's long-running horse-series theme, they commissioned the studio to add a water element to the new park. Connecting the horse theme with water, the seahorse concept emerged naturally. The main feature is a sunken wet area shaped like a seahorse, visible not only from within the playscape but from all the surrounding residential towers. The seahorse sunken platform hosts most of the water features, colored in a unified palette and spraying water inward. Around it, a strongly contrasting striped palette defines a dry play area, which also contains dry play equipment so the park remains usable in winter. The dry area is circular, mimicking the ripples that appear when people play in water. The result is a colorful, eye-catching playscape with play features for children and shaded seating for adults, visible from every surrounding residential tower. The project is designed to be used by children of different ages, with shallow water for toddlers and more active spraying features for older children, and the shaded seating gives parents a comfortable base.