Children’s Community Centre – The Playscape / Waa

Architects: waa | we architech anonymous
Area: Site Area: 3921.26 m², Gross Floor Area: 2657.47 m²
Year: 2021
Photography: Tian FangFang
Interior Design: waa | we architech anonymous
Structural Consultant: LAVA Structure
Main Contractor: YJYZ Construction (Beijing)
Principal Architects: Di Zhang, Jack Young
Design Team: Minghui Huo, Yuqing Feng, Min Wang, Jing Zhu, Mengbo Cao, Hualin Yang, Weiya Li, Qiwen Cao, Heff Jin
Structural Engineers: Jinbin Zhang, Lida Tang
Client: Beijing NuanQin Healthcare Technology Co., Ltd.
City: Beijing
Country: China

Children’s Community Centre – The Playscape, designed by waa | we architech anonymous, is in a former textile factory warehouse in Beijing, China. Five existing buildings enclose a circular site, integrating new construction while preserving the original structure. Focused on early childhood sensory integration, the design fosters motor coordination and sensory exploration through five play elements: Hide and Seek, Adventure Playground, Nook and Cranny, Maze, and Fantasy. Three key architectural features define the space: a pipe network forming an adventure structure, linked rooftops creating elevated pathways, and artificial hills enabling varied movement. The site is divided into three zones: a single-story building for younger children, a multi-level play area with classrooms, and a baking classroom. Rooftop platforms, connected by pipes and slides, serve as auxiliary play and rest areas. The design promotes exploration, creativity, and physical awareness while balancing adventure and safety.

People are the core of our design. While architecture itself does not have emotion, the events we design in the space trigger people’s senses and evoke emotional responses. The space becomes meaningful, like a screenplay with different scenes arranged to provoke emotions.
Interview with Di Zhang and Jack Young of waa

Children’s community centre – the playscape / waa

“Balance is invisible until it’s lost”

The project is situated within a former textile factory warehouse in Beijing, where five existing buildings enclose a circular site within the new development. Adhering to the principle of preserving the original structure, the design maintains the primary form of the pre-existing buildings while integrating new construction and restoration to meet the updated functional requirements.

The client’s initial request prioritized early childhood sensory integration training. The design addresses this need by focusing on the integration of sensory information—including vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—while also enhancing motor coordination for children.

Children growing up in urban environments today often struggle to find spaces that align with their natural instincts for exploration and play. Reflecting on childhood experiences from the 1980s and 1990s, many recall playing in stacked concrete pipes, hiding in courtyards, and exploring rooftops or neighbors’ yards. These organic community environments naturally encouraged independent activity and discovery.

With this in mind, the concept of “Back to the Neighborhood” was introduced, emphasizing the need for a well-equipped environment that engages children’s brains, bodies, and senses—serving as an essential supplement to urban childhood development. Drawing inspiration from traditional neighborhood play, five key play elements were identified to create a space where children can explore and develop an understanding of their bodies and senses through self-directed play, fostering bodily coordination and creativity:

Hide and Seek – Promotes teamwork, movement, and language skills, while encouraging sensory and cognitive exploration.
Adventure Playground – Enhances physical coordination and balance, allowing children to assess sensory inputs and make independent movement decisions.
Nook and Cranny – Utilizes spatial scale to refine children’s perception of space through bodily interaction.
Maze – Encourages exploration beyond visible boundaries, reinforcing the idea that the most enjoyable journey may not always be the most direct one.
Fantasy – Provides maximum creative freedom, allowing children to imagine and construct their own scenarios, counteracting the limitations of overly structured spaces.

This approach resulted in a multifunctional play environment designed to ignite the imagination, empowering children to take control of their surroundings. The space supports sensory and motor development while enhancing balance and coordination. Since awareness of balance and coordination often arises only when challenged, the project aims to stimulate sensory responses, fostering emotional expression and physical development in early childhood.

Three architectural elements were incorporated to create a multifunctional play environment:

1. Pipes
The pipe structures introduce confined spaces that encourage children to navigate their surroundings using their bodies, enhancing sensory coordination and motor skills. This steel pipe network serves as an interconnected system of bridges and steps, transforming the site into an adventure playground. The pipes vary in size and orientation, with some spiraling above the ground and others crawling beneath hilly terrain, offering diverse exploration opportunities. Five pipe diameters were designed for specific functions:

2.3m – Main circulation corridors
1.7m – Emergency staircases
1.3m – Safety railings
0.8m – Slides
0.4m – Outdoor lighting

These pipes interconnect and overlap, forming a complex structural system that integrates play with movement.

2. Roof
The five buildings form a semi-enclosed neighborhood, with rooftops linked by pipes to create a continuous loop. This elevated pathway provides children with aerial vantage points and the option to descend via slides, with height variations ranging from 7 meters to 4.3 meters. The circular rooftop route promotes alternative exploration paths, reinforcing the idea that indirect routes can often be more engaging than direct ones.

3. Mound (Hilly Terrain)
The artificial hills, independent of the main buildings, extend across the entire site, creating undulating terrain that allows children to experience varied speeds and elevation changes, enhancing their spatial awareness and coordination. These hills also function as multipurpose public foyers, linking to the main entrances of each building. Furthermore, two semi-outdoor circular amphitheaters are embedded at the base of the hills, providing gathering spaces for social interaction and activities.

The new buildings replace the original five warehouses, forming an enclosed site divided into two clusters by a pedestrian street. One cluster is adjacent to a park and features an entrance. The main structures are constructed with a full steel framework, while an external pipe system integrates play functions with circulation, serving as both an emergency evacuation route and a primary movement path. The facades retain the original warehouse window openings, redesigned to reflect children’s body movements and sightlines.

The existing building complex has been transformed into three distinct children’s zones:

1. Zone 1
A single-story, 6-meter-high building designed for younger children (ages 2-4). It includes large, suspended elastic fabric structures for movement training, with all exposed architectural elements, such as columns, specially shaped for safety. Nearby, a café, restaurant, and library provide additional amenities.

2. Zone 2
A former three-story building converted into a partially double-height play area for children aged 4 and up. Features include:

Climbing-friendly terrain with ball pits
An interactive cinema at the base
A suspended climbing net for viewing the ball pit from above
Eight classrooms on the second and third floors, with all learning areas connected to play zones via slides

3. Zone 3
A single-story building housing a baking classroom, located adjacent to the park.

The five rooftop platforms are linked by pipes in a continuous loop, serving as auxiliary rest areas while also connecting to outdoor play spaces through hills and slides.

Children naturally find excitement in real-life scenarios, with play being one of the few activities where they have full autonomy. While play is essential in shaping a child’s personality and development, urban environments often lack spaces that foster free and imaginative play. This project is designed to encourage children’s sensory, physical, and spatial exploration, offering an environment that integrates adventure and controlled risks. By doing so, it supports the development of creativity and a deeper understanding of physical capabilities.

“In Play, you don’t foresee an end product. It allows you to suspend judgment. Often the solution to one problem sparks a possibility for another set of problems… In the actual building of something, you see connections you could not possibly have foreseen on that scale, unless you were physically there.”

– Richard Serra, Artist