Tag: Singapore Playgrounds

Old Playgrounds in Singapore

Dragons, watermelon, bumboats and doves — these were just some designs of public playgrounds built from the 1970s to early 1990s in Singapore. Built by the HDB, they were based on local themes and icons, and were unique spaces for a generation of Singaporeans who grew up with fond memories of them.

This is an on-going project. View photos of the playground and  find them to relive your childhood!

UPDATE

Read my article at CNNGo for a short history of these playgrounds or my Singapore Architect essay on what we’ve lost with their passing. Also in the works — a more detailed history of the playgrounds and I may have tracked down its designer…

Danger and Dragons

The playgrounds a generation of Singaporeans played and grew up in were slain in the name of safety.

Dragon Playground

“Adults of tomorrow will recall dragons of Bedok” [1]— declared a 1987 headline in The Straits Times newspaper. Three and a half decades later, this prediction seems prophetic given how fondly a generation of Singaporeans now remember the dragon-shaped playgrounds they grew up playing in. Like its inspiration, the dragon, this playground design has become the symbol of a myth, of a now almost non-existent space and way of play for a generation of Singaporeans.

The dragon playground was first unveiled to the public in 1979, one of five ‘adventurelands’[2] that became a part of Singapore’s public housing esates. Other designs included a pair of doves, a metal cage, another with man-made slopes and one made for climbing. These new playgrounds, each costing around S$20,000 to construct, were the Housing & Development Board’s (HDB) plan to “move away from the preponderance of static animal sculptures” found in its existing playgrounds to “miniature adventurelands for the young and active” instead[3].

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