Pipemakers Park, Maribyrnong

Pipemaker's Park.


Client	Maribyrnong City Council
State	Victoria

Budget is no barrier to creativity.

Fleetwood was appointed as Lead Contractor by Maribyrnong City Council following an open Play tender at Pipemaker’s Park, near Flemington racecourse and the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne. The brief was to create a custom sculptural nature play structure that would fit within the rich heritage of the wider eight-hectare public reserve.

Creatively, the Council wanted something exciting and unique to inspire the local community. The catch was the limited budget. This presented a fantastic challenge. Thanks to some super-smart design thinking, great collaboration and a lot of hard work, we were able to deliver on all counts.

While the play structure itself is entirely bespoke – including a custom rock-climbing wall and swings – Pipemaker’s Park was also a great example of using custom and catalogue play items together. In addition to the main play structure, we also helped to procure a number of proprietary play items including swings, sand table, spinners and a Pulgi self-build cubby.

Our involvement.

Pipemaker’s Park was a little different to many tenders. Maribyrnong City Council was very invested in the space and had an idea of what they wanted for their new play structure.

Prior to concept submission, Council met with select tenderers to discuss their vision and budget. Following this session, we developed our response including two concepts with sketches, 3D renders and more detailed designs, and we were ultimately chosen as the Lead Contractor.

Once appointed, we worked closely with the Council’s landscape architects to finalise the preferred designs, before moving into detailing. The project schedule worked in our favour, as the playground tender happened before the landscape tender, which often isn’t the case. This gave the design teams ample time to collaborate and also meant the final design actually influenced the landscaping and plantings.

By the end of the project – and guided by our proprietary project methodology – we had designed, fabricated and installed the fully-custom play structure, complemented with a number of smaller catalogue items.

How does this project inspire people to love the outdoors?

The hero play structure adds a much-loved family element to the other features at Pipemaker’s Park that include an eco-garden and Living History Museum. It has quickly become a major community drawcard – it’s even been talked about up to 50km away! All the kids want to have their birthday party there and it’s opened up this area of history to the kids to learn about and develop their skills.

Design Challenge

Creatively, two very different cultural overlays had to be captured in the design. The first was the Indigenous history of the land’s traditional owners, the Wurundjeri people. The second was the 140-year industrial heritage of the site, most notably the old Hume’s Pipes factory which inspired the park’s name.

Combining these was tricky, but essential to ensure a meaningful connection for visitors to the space. Maribyrnong City Council’s landscape architects created a suite of wayfinding signage throughout the park, coupled with timber panels on the play structure, featuring engravings and artworks.

The play structure itself tells the story of the original pipe factory, with its form mimicking the shape of the pipes. At a structural level, the main challenge was the design of the footings. Many meetings were required between the engineering and design teams to deliver a resolution that was safe and solidly built, yet sat lightly within the landscape.

Council was also very keen for the design to blend seamlessly into the local habitat, allowing children to experience and explore the surrounding tree canopy.
Construction Challenge

With several natural obstacles to work around on the site, one of the main construction challenges was identifying the most effective ways to install the hero play structure. For example, as early as the design phase we recommended moving the layout and orientation of the play structure so it wouldn’t encroach on the existing tree roots.

During installation, we also had to carefully plan the way the boom and crane were set up to ensure the surrounding tree canopies and local flora was protected.
Innovations

With the site presenting a rich variety of play opportunities, we wanted make the very most of the available space so nothing was wasted. One example was the addition of a custom climbing log between the two towers, allowing kids to feel as if they were high up in the surrounding tree canopy.

At a delivery level, we also chose to pre-assemble the majority of the play structure off-site, allowing for a fast and seamless install with minimum disruption to other contractors working simultaneously on other elements within the eight-hectare site.
Features
- Climbing towers
- Slides
- Rock Climbing Wall
- Climbing log
Safety & Risk Considerations

We had to be very mindful of hazards created by the site’s established tree canopies and root zones. This required quite a bit of refinement to the design to ensure the footings didn’t interrupt the tree roots. As always, play compliance was also very important in order to minimise the potential for injuries to children as they enjoyed the space.
Sustainability Considerations

During installation, considerable care had to be taken to ensure we didn’t damage the park’s existing vegetation. This was managed with daily briefings, roping off sensitive sections of the site, and making sure the installation team always knew what they could – and couldn’t – go near.