A Playground of Daydreams

Daydream Forest Children's Park in Xiangyang, China
by Zach Earhart, Associate, DTJ DESIGN

Located just outside the city core of Xiangyang, China, Daydream Forest is a 30+ acre, themed children's park, a part of the greater Fabland entertainment district, created by the OCT Xiangyang development group. This playground and educational campus consists of eight uniquely themed play areas, three adventure courses, 15+ educational and learning experiences, and a flagship Children's Discovery Center with its own interior educational and discovery programming.

Planned as a significant architectural and landscape architectural icon rising more than 100 feet tall, the Canopy of Courage signifies the entry zone, and was designed to generate both exterior park artistic and sculptural value and internal park adventure and experience. The architectural firm developed this mega tree house with multiple levels, experiences, and impressive views. The play structure developer sourced all the playground equipment components. They manufacture some equipment as well as have an extensive local China team of private smaller companies they work with to produce features and equipment on larger scale projects. Pathways in the park include colorful areas with cast-in-place concrete with an epoxy surface paint or applied surface concrete staining depending on use and coloration intent.

Planned as a significant architectural and landscape architectural icon rising more than 100 feet tall, the Canopy of Courage signifies the entry zone, and was designed to generate both exterior park artistic and sculptural value and internal park adventure and experience. The architectural firm developed this mega tree house with multiple levels, experiences, and impressive views. The play structure developer sourced all the playground equipment components. They manufacture some equipment as well as have an extensive local China team of private smaller companies they work with to produce features and equipment on larger scale projects. Pathways in the park include colorful areas with cast-in-place concrete with an epoxy surface paint or applied surface concrete staining depending on use and coloration intent.

The area seen here is coined Agritopia. Oversized experience barns, in the shapes of giant livestock, were designed to create spaces for families to interact with and learn about raising farm animals. Themed playgrounds integrate food and farm implements. While DTJ did not specify a planting list for this project, they did provide a detailed description of design intent with many images for the projected look and performance of the landscape planting, zone by zone. Then a local landscape implementation team curated the plants based on local availability, and any transplanted trees, to propagate the landscape and bring it to life.

DTJ Design was brought on board as the creative and design lead on the project, and to assist the local operational and development team of CCIA (China Creative Intelligence Agency). A collaborative process between DTJ, CCIA, and the OCT Xiangyang teams worked to generate a distinct place for leisure and education, with an innovative immersive approach. DTJ Design provided visioning, master planning, architectural design, landscape architectural design, and theming design for all components of the park from concept through detailed design.

Hoping to create a one-of-a-kind experience, a farm tractor was envisioned by the landscape architectural firm not as a background piece at the playground, but the playground itself. The cultivated rows of crops are typical Chinese plants like soybeans, peppers and teas. Multi-stem maples create seasonal color and overhead canopy. Decomposed granite and gravel soft surface trails were used in the secondary and tertiary trail system to deliver a natural feel and a tactile foot experience. The vertical log edging is a typical Chinese practice in parks to help define edges, keep people on the paths, and to provide natural texture and interest. The seating bench wall and walkway to the left offer opportunities for school groups to gather and learn about the agricultural plants in the adjacent raised planters (far left).

Inside these larger-than-life vegetables and fruits at the Glorious Gardens Playground, children can bounce on trampoline-like spring nets, climb and swing from suspended ropes, and cross overhead vines from one melon to the next in a linked play experience. The play structure's manufacturer and local artisan teams utilized fiberglass-reinforced polymer (FRP), metal, and other structural materials to create these play structures. Playground zones in select areas were specified to have poured-in-place rubberized safety surfacing with a combination of epoxy painted or surface-stained coloration.

Starting off with a loose hand sketch on the DTJ Design idea board, then working in 3D modeling software, DTJ Design created the bones of Pigzilla and a program of a play structure along with the detailed theming seen here. This model was passed to attraction fabricators to add the engineering and play components. Select areas such as these steps, were installed with precast unit pavers, which were also used as accents around the park.

The Entomania Zone was envisioned by DTJ Design to be an area where children could pretend to be an insect or arthropod - a planned concept linking varied experiences and play opportunities like crawling in ant mounds, flying with a bee in the sky, or getting caught like a fly in the spider's web - all ideas generated during the conceptual brainstorm. Extensive faux stone rockwork mimics the sand hills of ants, creating a carved network of tunnels and bridges. The primary walkways included integral colored concrete with surface texture stamping and etched insignias. Highly skilled theming contractors took DTJ's detailed 3D models, created in Rhinoceros and SketchUp, to generate their own skeletal structure of steel and mesh framing. Then the artists hand carved and stained the shotcrete overlay.

Sometimes a play adventure does not need to be atop some tall structure with slides and nets. According to the landscape architect, China's more lenient playground regulations allowed the designs of Daydream Forest's play sculptures to focus on immersion. Limiting exterior play programming like climbing, and moving the play programming to the interior instead, allows a safer play experience for younger children. This Desert Toad for example: by positioning his body strategically, kids can climb on top of it, get inside its mouth or on its outstretched tongue. It was then placed in a setting with water - an interactive splash pad - and oversized desert-themed plants.

Nestled on a peninsula, guests to the Wetland Zone can engage in a fantastical search, learning along the way about birds and swamp inhabitants. The design of this area included boardwalks and wetland plantings, wild patchy grasses of the Wetland Wonderland, with Cypress and other water-loving trees towering overhead to set the canopy.

In Camp Survival - Wilderness and Adventure Zone, the larger-than-life trees were designed and fabricated to take on human characteristics. They are key climbing elements as part of the elaborate ropes and nets course in the canopy. Mixed in with the faux trees, a natural environment was created in Camp Survival that in the long term is intended to simulate the coniferous and broadleaf evergreen forests found in the nearby mountain and hillside ranges. DTJ created loose concept sketches, then detailed the designs in 3D and collaborated with the manufacturer and modeled the extensive and elaborate rock work as well.

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Located just outside the city core of Xiangyang, China, Daydream Forest is a 30+ acre, themed children's park, a part of the greater Fabland entertainment district, created by the OCT Xiangyang development group. This playground and educational campus consists of eight uniquely themed play areas, three adventure courses, 15+ educational and learning experiences, and a flagship Children's Discovery Center with its own interior educational and discovery programming.

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Planned as a significant architectural and landscape architectural icon rising more than 100 feet tall, the Canopy of Courage signifies the entry zone, and was designed to generate both exterior park artistic and sculptural value and internal park adventure and experience. The architectural firm developed this mega tree house with multiple levels, experiences, and impressive views. The play structure developer sourced all the playground equipment components. They manufacture some equipment as well as have an extensive local China team of private smaller companies they work with to produce features and equipment on larger scale projects. Pathways in the park include colorful areas with cast-in-place concrete with an epoxy surface paint or applied surface concrete staining depending on use and coloration intent.

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Planned as a significant architectural and landscape architectural icon rising more than 100 feet tall, the Canopy of Courage signifies the entry zone, and was designed to generate both exterior park artistic and sculptural value and internal park adventure and experience. The architectural firm developed this mega tree house with multiple levels, experiences, and impressive views. The play structure developer sourced all the playground equipment components. They manufacture some equipment as well as have an extensive local China team of private smaller companies they work with to produce features and equipment on larger scale projects. Pathways in the park include colorful areas with cast-in-place concrete with an epoxy surface paint or applied surface concrete staining depending on use and coloration intent.

4 / 12

The area seen here is coined Agritopia. Oversized experience barns, in the shapes of giant livestock, were designed to create spaces for families to interact with and learn about raising farm animals. Themed playgrounds integrate food and farm implements. While DTJ did not specify a planting list for this project, they did provide a detailed description of design intent with many images for the projected look and performance of the landscape planting, zone by zone. Then a local landscape implementation team curated the plants based on local availability, and any transplanted trees, to propagate the landscape and bring it to life.

5 / 12

DTJ Design was brought on board as the creative and design lead on the project, and to assist the local operational and development team of CCIA (China Creative Intelligence Agency). A collaborative process between DTJ, CCIA, and the OCT Xiangyang teams worked to generate a distinct place for leisure and education, with an innovative immersive approach. DTJ Design provided visioning, master planning, architectural design, landscape architectural design, and theming design for all components of the park from concept through detailed design.

6 / 12

Hoping to create a one-of-a-kind experience, a farm tractor was envisioned by the landscape architectural firm not as a background piece at the playground, but the playground itself. The cultivated rows of crops are typical Chinese plants like soybeans, peppers and teas. Multi-stem maples create seasonal color and overhead canopy. Decomposed granite and gravel soft surface trails were used in the secondary and tertiary trail system to deliver a natural feel and a tactile foot experience. The vertical log edging is a typical Chinese practice in parks to help define edges, keep people on the paths, and to provide natural texture and interest. The seating bench wall and walkway to the left offer opportunities for school groups to gather and learn about the agricultural plants in the adjacent raised planters (far left).

7 / 12

Inside these larger-than-life vegetables and fruits at the Glorious Gardens Playground, children can bounce on trampoline-like spring nets, climb and swing from suspended ropes, and cross overhead vines from one melon to the next in a linked play experience. The play structure's manufacturer and local artisan teams utilized fiberglass-reinforced polymer (FRP), metal, and other structural materials to create these play structures. Playground zones in select areas were specified to have poured-in-place rubberized safety surfacing with a combination of epoxy painted or surface-stained coloration.

8 / 12

Starting off with a loose hand sketch on the DTJ Design idea board, then working in 3D modeling software, DTJ Design created the bones of Pigzilla and a program of a play structure along with the detailed theming seen here. This model was passed to attraction fabricators to add the engineering and play components. Select areas such as these steps, were installed with precast unit pavers, which were also used as accents around the park.

9 / 12

The Entomania Zone was envisioned by DTJ Design to be an area where children could pretend to be an insect or arthropod - a planned concept linking varied experiences and play opportunities like crawling in ant mounds, flying with a bee in the sky, or getting caught like a fly in the spider's web - all ideas generated during the conceptual brainstorm. Extensive faux stone rockwork mimics the sand hills of ants, creating a carved network of tunnels and bridges. The primary walkways included integral colored concrete with surface texture stamping and etched insignias. Highly skilled theming contractors took DTJ's detailed 3D models, created in Rhinoceros and SketchUp, to generate their own skeletal structure of steel and mesh framing. Then the artists hand carved and stained the shotcrete overlay.

10 / 12

Sometimes a play adventure does not need to be atop some tall structure with slides and nets. According to the landscape architect, China's more lenient playground regulations allowed the designs of Daydream Forest's play sculptures to focus on immersion. Limiting exterior play programming like climbing, and moving the play programming to the interior instead, allows a safer play experience for younger children. This Desert Toad for example: by positioning his body strategically, kids can climb on top of it, get inside its mouth or on its outstretched tongue. It was then placed in a setting with water - an interactive splash pad - and oversized desert-themed plants.

11 / 12

Nestled on a peninsula, guests to the Wetland Zone can engage in a fantastical search, learning along the way about birds and swamp inhabitants. The design of this area included boardwalks and wetland plantings, wild patchy grasses of the Wetland Wonderland, with Cypress and other water-loving trees towering overhead to set the canopy.

12 / 12

In Camp Survival - Wilderness and Adventure Zone, the larger-than-life trees were designed and fabricated to take on human characteristics. They are key climbing elements as part of the elaborate ropes and nets course in the canopy. Mixed in with the faux trees, a natural environment was created in Camp Survival that in the long term is intended to simulate the coniferous and broadleaf evergreen forests found in the nearby mountain and hillside ranges. DTJ created loose concept sketches, then detailed the designs in 3D and collaborated with the manufacturer and modeled the extensive and elaborate rock work as well.

There is no greater stimulus to the inherent curiosity of a child's mind than what exists in nature. This is the very driving force behind Daydream Forest Children's Park in Xiangyang, China. Here, children and families alike are treated to a fantastical tour of the senses, challenging their physical and mental aptitude in a whimsical adventure setting. The idea of this place is to challenge the mind to a game of modified reality, where real life things we connect within nature take on a vision filtered through a child's eyes.

This creates a unique storybook-like adventure that teaches kids strong values and morals for life, while having too much fun to care that they are gaining this wisdom along the way. The overall message hidden through these experiences of fantasy and fun is that one must confront the clash between pure nature and human culture to find a compromise as their journey as a human on Earth. How we interact with nature, manipulate it, survive within it, and reside around it, all shape who we as humans are.

There are five major zones in the park, in addition to the entry zone. Each will provide a unique insight into nature and human culture through elements of play and adventure, with a heavy lean on education. Since not every person learns best in a classroom, there will be many different methods of education such as nature walks, outdoor classrooms, informational signage, and hands-on-activities. With themes including agriculture, biodiversity, and outdoor skills, there will be numerous opportunities to learn through immersion. Whether it be families or school groups, Daydream Forest is the perfect getaway to the nature of fun.

The Entry Zone
From the moment guests arrive, they are beckoned in by an awe-inspiring icon representing the fusion of landscape and architecture with a heavy dose of whimsy, dubbed the "Canopy of Courage." This ascending adventure play component rises almost a hundred feet out of the ground challenging guest's courage to climb to its tree-like canopy at the top. This park entry looks to have been captured straight from a child's imagination.

A world-class children's discovery center, a part of this arrival sequence, helps to set the tone for the type of fun and engaging experiences that will be had throughout the rest of the park. Looking down from above, colorful annuals and perennial plantings mark the landscape in the entry plaza, with textures and patterns like an expressionist painting welcoming people into the park.

Agritopia - Agriculture Learning Zone
Agritopia incorporates a story of funny looking flowers and plants grown from magic seeds. The scene is generated from the fictitious story of a Mad Seed Scientist in a frenzy of experimentation in this garden lab. In the middle of the mess of tubes and wires and books, spilling with carefully taken notes, is a vast glowing cauldron of seeds! These magical seeds seem to have allowed the plants and animals here to grow to monumental proportions.

Giant chickens, goats, and funny well-dressed pig characters are not uncommon here, as users feel dwarfed below towering fruits and vegetables in the form of play structures. Kids get to learn and play amongst this fantasy novel-like story scene about real life things - food production, animal husbandry, culinary skills, and the future technologies of agriculture. Agritopia is also not short on the fun and the play, with places called Hay Country, Glorious Gardens Village, Friends of Fuzz and Feather, then finally the Cabbage Castle.

Wetland Wonderland
As you leave the pastoral scenes of Agritopia behind you, the landscape transitions from cultivated rows of cropland to the wild patchy grasses of the Wetland Wonderland with Cypress and other trees high overhead. The suggestion of water permeates the landscape, hidden beneath layers of lush planting and mounds of dense grasses, that suddenly part to reveal the surrounding lakes.

A series of towering nests and oversized water birds and cranes perch on a low rise in the distance. Only as you approach do you realize that it's an entire village, connected by net tunnels, thrilling slides, and a variety of climbing experiences. Lakeside Nature Center, Nest Raider Playground Salt Marsh Swamp, and Trader's Outpost are among a few destinations within this zone of the park.

Entomania - Nature Discovery Zone
Entomania is a zone of the park where insects are a buzz with activity, and you are a mere crawler amongst them. This part of the Nature Zone is the habitat of fantastical insects larger than life, and you get to join their society for a day. The rockwork above and surrounding, takes on fantastical shapes, and the land turns dry and barren. A sharp contrast to the wilds and the lush of the Wetland Swamps adjacent. It is only later that you discover that you have wandered into the AntMaze village, crisscrossed with a labyrinth of tunnels and towers to explore for hours.
Rocky and broken, tough desert trees line shallow pockets of sand where small children play in the shade. Cacti and succulents add green textures to the oranges of the soil and stone. At a secret desert oasis, dragonflies buzz overhead, water bugs and toads splash you with water at an interactive splash pad. Overhead the bees are busy, and the elevated pedal track and zip-lines allow you to experience the zipping flight patterns of a worker bee.

Camp Survival - Wilderness & Adventure Zone
Camp Survival is part campground part wilderness challenge course, acting as a lighter version of survival training and huge confidence builder for kids. Teamwork, leadership, and confidence through competition and skills training is the mission.

This zone contains a Water Adventure Course, a Forest Challenge Course, and a nature inspired adventure playground, in the setting of your favorite summer sleep-away camp. Families can scale larger than life tree characters that almost have a personality of themselves, as they circuit an elevated high ropes and challenge course atop the canopy known as the Mystery Forest adventure park. Here furry mammal friends can also follow along in their own elevated network of tunnels and nets to play along in the fun.

Marina Zone
A cohesive philosophy of building with the land instead of on the land is manifested in the Marina Zone. Boathouses and docks rest gently at the water's edge, lightly paved roads pass quietly through the landscape. A variety of watercraft - paddle boats, kayaks, canoes, and sailboats - are available to explore the park central lake.

Beyond and below the marina docks, intact ruins of an ancient city can be seen at the bottom of the lake - a reminder of nature's power and mystery, and the fragility of a humans' existence. By vessel, families can hone their water navigation skills to row or to sail, learn about water plants and native shoreline ecosystems, and even venture to another experience across the lake.

At Daydream Forest you may find yourself in a battle to save a sacred egg from an evil crocodile gang, or part of an ongoing spat between the spiders and the ants, then thrust into a wacky scene where the mischievous Pigzilla character plays tricks on you.

A guest might find themselves crash-landed into a frozen environment and challenge themselves to escape, in a skill learning quest for survival. These are just a taste of what one might experience on a visit to Daydream Forest. Giving the thirst to come back for more adventure, knowledge, and just plain old fun.

With such a diverse and unique blend of guest experiences, coupled with a one-of-a-kind fantasy themed landscape environment chalked full of fun, Daydream Forest
Children's Park is a new icon to the city of Xiangyang, and to all Central China.

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