Together We Play Cheung Chau Park Children’s Playground

Cheung Chau’s identity is rooted in ferry journeys, compact streets, coastal and wooded landscapes, festivals, faith and close community life. These experiences shape the rhythm of the island and how children form memories of place.
In response to the Hong Kong Government’s policy to renew 170 public playgrounds, AaaM conceived Together We Play to explore how play spaces could reflect the culture and needs of different communities. For Cheung Chau Park, the central question was how a playground could carry island culture and strengthen a younger generation’s sense of belonging.
Participatory design became a way of reading the place through the everyday experiences of children, families and residents.

Working with Little Green Feet, local schools and community organisations, AaaM conducted children’s workshops, parent-child observations and community engagement activities.
Children described the island through journeys home, festival scenes, nature and friendship. They connected the movement of a rocking horse with the fast ferry, imagined elevated walkways among the treetops where they could look across the island, and proposed using flags to call friends to the playground.
The team translated these ideas into spatial relationships involving movement, height, direction, views, encounter and shared recognition, rather than reproducing them as literal symbols.

The final design adopts Island Vibrancy as its central theme, bringing together transport memories, natural landscape, festival culture and community energy.
Changes in height, movement, sightlines and circulation shape the play experience. Boat-like forms, towers, rope nets, flags and colour work together to create opportunities for exploration, lookout and social encounter.
Local references are embedded in proportion, movement and relationships between activities. Children are therefore free to reinterpret the island through their own play.

Children and residents contributed observations, play needs and spatial ideas. The design team balanced these voices with requirements for safety, structure, management, maintenance and construction.
The participation of schools, a youth centre, volunteers and community partners brought a broad range of local experiences into the project. The completed playground retains a recognisable island character while remaining open to new games and stories.
Belonging grows through daily use and through the knowledge that community memories helped shape the place.

Together We Play begins with the questions specific to each site. Participation helps reveal the community, while the design responds to its distinct environment, culture and way of life.
Cheung Chau Park draws from island transport, festival traditions, natural landscape and close community relationships. Through participation and spatial translation, these qualities form a public playscape particular to Cheung Chau.
The playground becomes part of the island’s everyday culture, connecting children and families with local memory while creating space for new relationships and stories.