Our proposal named Diamond Green is a response to an invited competition for a Public Art / Playground Work at Livingston Active Open Space in Victoria. The submission was awarded runner up finalist.

Diamond Green proposes an ensemble of elements that form a sculptural whole. It is our intention that the viewer becomes part of the sculptural work, blurring the boundaries between spectator and sculpture. By inviting the viewer to become the participant through play, play itself becomes poetry in motion. 

Diamond Green is a work of ‘playable sculpture’ that brings together the expanded fields of Sculpture and Landscape Architecture. We have liaised with Play DMC and the City of Casey’s internal landscape design team to ensure that our design follows safety protocols and is sensitive to the overall project concept. 

The proposal references two main childhood themes: the Bead Maze, and the Sports Court. 

1. THE BEADMAZE 
By bringing art and architecture together, Diamond Green proposes an ensemble of sculptural elements that are evocative of the classic children’s toy, the bead maze. 

Deconstructing the formal elements of the traditional bead maze, this suite of sculptural components will consist of three primary materials: finely-honed concrete forms, and 60mm stainless steel pipe. 

The collection of sculptural forms will include stacked circular ‘hoops’ that one can sit or lie in; a cast concrete ‘viewing totem’; a series of three-dimensional ‘scribbles’ of intersecting brass lines; and a scatterstar of cast concrete geometric elements, including an inverted cast concrete ‘step’ and a cast concrete ‘sphere’. 

Each element can be encountered in a number of ways to create a space for play, a site to sit within, a place to pass through and look up at, step over or duck under. It will be robust enough for children to swing or hang from all steel elements. Surprise details in each element, such as viewing holes in the vertical totem at varying heights, will offer delight and surprise. 

2. CHILD-LED GAMES 
In addition to our reference to the bead maze, our playable sculpture references the sports courts that wrap around the Casey site. The graphic characteristics of the ‘sports court’ have become the organising principle of our ensemble of sculptures. 

Seen here, a range of sports courts are presented as series of geometric abstractions drawn across the ground plane in a range of coloured soft-fall geometric shapes. 

Borrowing its compositional logic from a fusion of sports-court markings inspires a space for children to create their own games and establish their own rules. 

This playable sculpture offers experiences that have the potential to create new circumstances, new memories and new knowledge. 

Architecture: Ciliberto Architects
Artist: Sanné Mestrom
Client: City of Casey, Victoria
Structural Engineer: Cantilever Consulting Engineers
Playground BCA Consultants: Play DCM