Meet the visionaries behind the Silver Jubilee Park
Enter Vee Design, the visionaries behind the emerging Silver Jubilee Park in Springfield Rise!
A local Brisbane design firm that is known for creating unforgettable spaces that promote connection, positive change and sustainability, Vee Design approach each project with a people-centred focus to ensure the longevity of their creations.
Vee Design has established a long and meaningful relationship with Lendlease, first working together on The Peninsula in Springfield Lakes in 2016. Some seven years later, the company has now assisted Lendlease on over 34 projects.
They’re also no stranger to working across transformative and iconic masterplans and large-scale projects across Ipswich, as the team were responsible for the urban design, landscape architecture and placemaking behind the rejuvenated Ipswich CBD, Robelle Domain Parklands and the waterscapes at Orion Lagoon.
We sat down with Holly Peacock, Senior Landscape Architect at Vee Design to discuss their involvement in the creation of Silver Jubilee Park.
Silver Jubilee Park aerial view
The key design drivers behind Silver Jubilee Park
There are five design drivers that have influenced the make up of Silver Jubilee Park -
- Social interaction and problem solving – promoting a place for park users to create their own form of less structured play. Vee Design has structured the design of the park to ensure there is room for less organised play to contrast the regulated sporting courts and adjacent fields. In doing so, park users – particularly children – are able to nurture creativity and imagination, develop fine and gross motor skills and learn to play with others through compromise, conflict resolution and sharing.
- Multi levels of interaction and intensity – designing a park that allows users to decide on their level of interaction and intensity. To ensure everyone in the community can enjoy the facilities and greenscapes at Silver Jubilee Park, Vee Design has factored for three types of interaction – low, medium and high. For adventure seekers, the park will include an adventure track that offers a multi-user loop of challenges, and for those looking for a slower pace, there are low impact trails to follow. The addition of the abstracted sports court also offers those looking to work up a sweat a place to use balls and other sporting accessories.
- Multi-functionality – curating a space that can host a multitude of activities. With areas that allow activities, games, sports, socialising and relaxation, users are more inclined to revisit the park to discover new ways to experience the space.
- Context – linking to the surrounding area and ensuring the site references local environment and themes mountain to city. Situated among mountainous terrain, Vee Design has ensured the broader park reflects the local environment of Spring Mountain, as well as its connection to nearby urban centres.
- Icon Status – ensuring the space will be identifiable from just one picture. With bright colours and identifiable terrain, Vee Design has ensured this park will be memorable in the minds of local residents and visitors for years to come, offering a new and exciting take on sporting themes and fields.
Silver Jubilee Park ground level view
Supporting Spring Mountain’s local flora and fauna
Like most projects that Vee Design undertakes, the planting design of Silver Jubilee Park looks to extend the natural environment which it fringes on, seeking to provide a warm vibrant backdrop which supports existing habitats. Holly said with an onsite gully that captures and filters overland water, it was important to plant native plants that can clean and treat this, as well as create important fringe habitats within the site.
“The feature planting that surrounds the playground has been designed to highlight the diversity of great local species,” Holly said. “Planting beds surrounding the activity trail showcase native floral plants which attract the birds and the bees by organising them into colours groups. In the yellow category we have Yellow Buttons, Grevilla Coorooma Cascade and the Eggs and Bacon Plant, in the purple category we have Fairy Fan Flower and Coastal rosemary and in pink we have Heath Myrtle, Pink Cascade and Corymbia 'Summer Red'.”
Elements of Silver Jubilee Park that residents to get excited about
While there will be plenty to see and do once Silver Jubilee opens to the public in April, Holly has identified some elements she believes residents and visitors will get excited about – including her own favourite aspects of the park.
“My favourite part of the design is the racing track and activity trail which criss-crosses the playground and invites the users to explore all the different areas and activities that the park has to offer,” Holly said. “These differing routes allow various users to be a part of the play experience through offering different levels of interaction and intensity, whether it is adventures kids launching through the obstacle course, zooming past on scooters, mum taking bub for an interactive pram stroll, or a person with different abilities in their wheel chair or walker exploring the terrain and flowering garden beds. The track is punctuated with line marking that echoes the neighbouring sport field and courts for kids to instil their own meaning into, creating their own games in a less prescribed way, this opening it up to endless ways to play.”
Over the coming weeks, we will be highlighting different elements of Silver Jubilee Park before its grand opening in late April 2023. To stay up to date, follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our mailing list here.