Design has been informed by workshops with local children and families
HTA Design has completed a dinosaur-themed playground in Crystal Palace Park conceived as an immersive paleontological dig site.
Newly unveiled images of the scheme, part of HTA’s wider £18m overhaul of the park, show a series of large play structures inspired by the park’s famous Victorian dinosaur sculptures.
The playground has been built for Bromley council and co-delivered with the Crystal Palace Park Trust, with Maylim acting as main contractor and PlayuEquip providing the site’s bespoke play structures.
It has drawn on the vision of Joseph Paxton, the architect who designed the original Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851, for the park to be a “journey through time” beginning in prehistory.
HTA’s design for the playground has also been shaped by a series of community engagement events in the park and workshops at nearby schools inviting children and families to share their favourite dinosaurs.
The three dinosaurs which topped the list, Megalosaurus, Hylaeosaurus and Iguanodon, all feature in the playground and have been designed to maximise opportunities for swinging and climbing, the two preferred activities chosen by children during the engagement sessions.
Slides have been carved into the embankment imitating dinosaur claw marks, while a giant Hylaeosaurus skull encourages children to climb and slide through the beast’s open jaws.
Meanwhile, a winding dinosaur tail forms a playful route across an undulating mound, leading to a sandpit shaped like an enormous dinosaur footprint, perfect for fossil hunting, tactile discovery, and imaginative play for children of all ages.
HTA’s landscape design director Natalia Roussou said the playground continues Paxton’s vision for the park as a “destination for education and entertainment”.
“Co-designed with the local community and delivered by Bromley council, and Crystal Palace Park Trust, it enriches the park’s pre-historic narrative and encourages children to discover and interpret the play structures using their own imagination,” Roussou added.
HTA’s wider work in the park has included restoring the grade I-listed dinosaur statues, the lakes and the Italian terraces.
A separate scheme by Thomas Ford & Partners has also restored the grade II-listed subway which originally acted as the public entrance to the Crystal Palace when it was moved to the park after the Great Exhibition.
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