Head in the Clouds

from January 2021

Head in the Clouds The children of Istanbul can play in the clouds at the new Marmara Forum playground

By: Carve

Iconic cloud structures have arisen in the city of Istanbul. They are a striking landmark in the new open air playground on the roof park of Marmara Forum, a shopping centre in the Bakirköy district. The windows of the clouds magically change colours as daylight changes throughout the day.

Carve was asked to design the playground on the rooftop terrace of Marmara Forum, 24 meters above street level. The terrace and the food court had been renovated to reestablish the Forum as a prominent shopping centre, and it needed a new playground to match.

Concept

The playground has areas designated to different age groups. Carve aimed at making a connection in the design through both form and experience: the experience of touching the clouds, being about eight floors above the ground.

Intelligent Playground

The assignment tasked to Carve was to design a high-profile playground, fitting to the renewed vibrancy of the shopping centre. Children should be able to play in the shade if the weather is warm and sunny, and play under a shelter when it’s raining. In commercial areas and terraces often only limited space is available. This conflicts with the high number of children that visit these types of playgrounds, especially during peak hours. For that reason, one of the starting points was to design tall structures with big volumes, fully playable from the inside.

From Small to Tall

The playground consists of four areas that cater for different age groups — from small to tall, there is a toddler space, a climbing dome, a larger ensemble of spheres and a

I PLAYGROUND

near eight-meter-tall climbing tower with an internal slide. The interior of the clouds is completely furnished with play elements: children can climb, slide, lounge in a forest of hammocks and experience height from behind a window looking at the city’s skyline or by looking down through the climbing nets.

Colours

The white paint of the play clouds was chosen to adapt to the weather changes: it appears bright white on a sunny day and greyer on a rainy day. Often adults tend to think a playground needs to have an abundance of colours, but it is the children that give colour

to the playground. The dichroic windows colour the in- and outside of the play clouds and also give extraordinary colours to the world you see through the windows from within. Magical realism experienced by children in real life!

Time Frame

Typically, projects like this one, that are not off-the-shelf designs, take a long time to design, engineer and be realised. A project is as good as its client. Behind Marmara Forum is a visionary client that knew they wanted something special. It is impressive to see how all parties involved have been working constructively, moving together in the same direction, to make the project come alive. For this reason, it was possible to complete such a project from the first sketches to realisation within a six-month time frame.

Consideration

Where in the past playgrounds were mostly facilitated by local municipalities, nowadays often commercial parties are the ones to take initiative in this field of semipublic and freely accessible play spaces. Parties that really dare to offer children something spectacular. The playground of Marmara Forum is a fine example of such an initiative.

Technical Challenges: There were many technical challenges during the design and engineering process. For example, considering the size of the largest structure (eight-meter-tall) to be constructed and the load limits of the existing roof. This issue was creatively solved by designing a selfsupporting structure on top of a constructive point, spreading the loads at the same time. The spheres of all of the play clouds together are constructed out of hexagonal and pentagonal panels, 275 different panels in total.

Local craftsmen produced, assembled and installed the double curved stainless steel panels with incredible precision. The importance of stimulating the local economy and working with local partners was at the forefront of Carve’s decision making from the beginning. Utilizing these locally embedded partners and their networks was key to a superb and timely realization.