Mulock Park’s Hollow Log Play Park: a sneak peek

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Gearing up for Mulock Park’s opening (third post in a series)

Mulock Park’s Hollow Log Play Park combines the story of a forest’s regenerative life cycle with many different types of play environments for active fun.

Welcome to the Hollow Log Play Park, the third in PLANT Architect Inc.’s series of posts leading up to the late-summer opening of the Town of Newmarket’s 6.47-hectare Mulock Park. While most of this project involved transforming the extant portion of a private estate into a new community destination for culture, recreation, and connecting with nature, the northwest corner of the site had already been converted to a neighbourhood park several decades earlier. Part of what was formerly Jim Bond Park will soon have a new role as Mulock Park’s top spot for kids. A great place for climbing, swinging, exploring, and happily learning with water and sand, the Hollow Log Play Park – like many other parts of Mulock Park – tells an ecological story. Its subject: the regenerative life cycle of the forest.

Areas within the playground represent various parts of a fallen tree that generates new forest growth as it decays.

Collectively, the playground’s zones represent a fallen tree, nurturing new forest growth as it decays. The tree’s tunnel-like hollow trunk can be climbed from inside or out; sculptures of giant mushrooms spring up where wood would break down and fertilize the soil; a big branch, split open down its centre, invites kids to pump water at one end and watch it flow through the channel and into the ground. (Thanks to Earthscape for beautifully and safely bringing our concept for the Hollow Log Play Park to life.)

Nearby, a stand of trees provides a quiet, shady spot to rest on a bench and cool off after tearing around the playground.

Kids can climb and swing from the ‘nest of branches’ play structure while their caregivers take a seat nearby.

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