Rongchen Tianzhu

At Cifi Rongchen Tianzhu in Fuzhou, the landscape office HWA has wrapped a children's playground in a ring of colourful gift boxes, turning a leftover construction plot in a rapidly growing new district into an inward-facing, permanent play garden. Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian, has more than twenty-two hundred years of history and was a key port on the ancient Maritime Silk Road; its Jin'an District is now one of the city's fastest-expanding zones, and the site began as a ragged patch of loess, rubble and tower cranes. Rather than fall back on a cheap, temporary play kit, the designers chose to treat the messy surroundings as an opportunity, screening them off with a permeable, inward-looking garden that will remain part of the residential community long after sales end. The starting point is the child's own perspective: the space is programmed for multiple age groups, mixed family compositions and young parents, with play and exploration as the organising principles. At the entrance, a gradient-coloured slatted screen lets light and shadow dance across the pavement, as if a paint pot had been tipped by accident. The jasmine, Fuzhou's city flower, is abstracted into a soft curvilinear motif, woven with the slats and art installations to produce a playful, interactive world. A large theatrical play structure lets children run, climb and chase through changing volumes, and a climbing net and a whispering tube add sensory surprises. After dark, scattered lights glow like stars, decorating the playground like a constellation. The design pairs dynamic play zones with quiet moments, so that the result reads as both a growing landscape and a piece of urban art, fusing humanistic feeling with contemporary city life. The playground is meant as a place where hope and the future begin, where children grow through play, think through interaction, and feel the charm of space through adventure, in a safe, carefree setting.