Camden Active Spaces was a pioneering public health project designed to reduce childhood obesity by increasing physical activity in school playgrounds through innovative playscapes. Erect And Root collaborated with Wayward to deliver schemes in three primary and one secondary school.

In workshops with pupils, teachers, and parents, we crafted narratives for the new play spaces such as the Earthling and Cloud Kingdoms at the neighbouring Torriano Schools. These strong narratives aimed to draw less active and confident children through imaginative play into the active landscapes. The co-design workshops, including a silly game of border ball where ideas were exchanged, broke down inhibition and fostered exchange and collaboration.

The project impact was rigorously monitored by University College London sports scientists and published in medical journals. Findings showed some increases in physical activity and considerable increases in social wellbeing. Teachers also reported better levels of concentration.

Each school’s playground responded to unique community needs, resulting in diverse spatial strategies that extended beyond physical activity to support holistic wellbeing. At Torriano Juniors, a disused Victorian shelter was transformed into a cooking classroom adjacent to a food-growing area, integrating healthy eating education into the curriculum.

At Acland Burghley Secondary School’s Picnic Lawn we subverted the only existing school ground feature (‘no climbing’ signs attached), offering instead enlarged, stacked, and distorted picnic benches to create a parkour and climbing landscape that encouraged physical activity. Meanwhile, Carlton Primary’s design tackled spatial constraints by fitting a complex, overlapping community of dwellings into a compact site formerly used for parking.