Playform+ for Childcare

Playform+ outdoor environments by Urban Landscape Projects
Children playing with sticks, leaves and pebbles in a shallow sandstone creek bed Toddlers playing with blocks and figures on lawn beside raised timber planters, with educators alongside A childcare playspace with level lawn, raised planters and log seating under shade Children playing in a timber cubby kitchen with a sandpit beyond A childcare productive garden of rosemary, herbs and fruit trees beneath a flowering jacaranda Children walking across a synthetic lawn beside a fallen log and native grasses Purple shade sails over a large sandpit with a red jumping mound, children playing beneath

Exceptional outdoor environments, designed as part of your centre.

Playform+ is our complete design and construction service for new childcare centres and significant whole-of-yard developments.

We work alongside owners, operators, architects and project teams to create outdoor environments that are considered from the beginning, not added once the building has been resolved.

Every Playform+ environment is designed around the children who will use it, the educational experiences it can support and the practical realities of operating a successful early learning centre.

One experienced team. One integrated process. From planning and design through to construction and handover.

A complete childcare yard with a timber play structure, slide, carved poles, swings, lawn, paths and sandstone terracing

Designed for children. Resolved for the real world.

We believe the best childcare environments do more than keep children occupied.

They invite movement, exploration, imagination, challenge, discovery and connection. They create places to run and climb, places to build and invent, places to gather and places to retreat. Nature, landscape and play become part of the everyday learning environment.

Our role is to bring those experiences together into one coherent landscape.

Playform+ combines our landscape and playground expertise with more than 35 years of experience designing and building environments for children.

The result is an outdoor environment that feels purposeful, natural and engaging because every element has been considered as part of the whole.

A timber batten screen and native grasses beside a curved timber tunnel in a childcare yard
Raised timber garden beds along a path, with lawn, shade structures and a covered deck beyond

Outdoor environments belong in the project from the beginning.

The outdoor environment should not be the space left over around the building.

With Playform+, ULP works with the wider project team to integrate the landscape into the development from an early stage.

We coordinate our design with the architectural plans, site conditions, DA requirements and project programme, allowing important decisions around levels, drainage, access, shade, planting, surfacing, play and construction to be considered together. This coordination is a defined part of the Playform+ model.

It creates a better outdoor environment and a more resolved project.

The Playform Design System

Great design does not need to begin from zero every time.

Over decades of designing and constructing children’s environments, ULP has developed a library of proven Playform, SPROUTS and Accent building blocks.

Playform+ gives our designers the freedom to configure, adapt and combine those elements around the architecture, landscape and identity of each centre.

It means we can draw on solutions we understand deeply, while still creating an environment that belongs specifically to your project.

Proven thinking. Project-specific design.

We design what we build.

Design and construction are not separate conversations at ULP.

Our designers understand materials, construction, compliance, detailing and buildability because we are responsible for seeing the project through to completion.

Our construction teams understand the design intent because they are delivering a landscape developed by the same ULP team.

That continuity allows design decisions to be made with a clear understanding of how they will perform in the finished environment.

Fewer handovers. Greater accountability. Better continuity from the first conversation to the finished yard.

Children crouching at a stainless water pump, watching the flow fill a bucket

A clear path from vision to reality.

Every Playform+ project begins by understanding the centre you are creating and what you want the outdoor environment to achieve.

Following site consultation and activation, our Design Brief Meeting brings the key project priorities together. ULP then leads the outdoor design through development, construction and handover.

  1. Site consultation
  2. Landscape Activation
  3. Design Brief Meeting
  4. ULP-led design
  5. Delivery and handover
  1. 01UnderstandWe learn about your centre, project, site, programme and vision for the outdoor environment.
  2. 02ActivateThe Landscape Activation Agreement brings ULP into the project and establishes the pathway for design and delivery.
  3. 03DesignOur Design Brief Meeting captures the priorities of the operator and project team. ULP then leads the design using the Playform Design System.
  4. 04DeliverThe same team carries the thinking through construction, coordination and handover.

From the first idea to children walking into the finished environment, ULP remains responsible for the outdoor project.

Built for more than opening day.

A childcare environment should continue to work long after the photographs are taken.

We consider how the landscape will be used every day. How children move through it. How educators supervise it. Where shade falls. How water moves. How materials age. How planting develops. How surfaces perform. How the environment can be maintained.

These practical considerations are not separate from good design.

They are part of good design.

Our goal is to create environments that children love, educators can use and operators can be proud of for years to come.

Playform+ Portfolio

One vision. Multiple centres.

For multi-centre operators, Playform+ can become more than a single project.

We can establish a repeatable design and delivery framework that carries the operator’s outdoor-environment philosophy across multiple locations while allowing every centre to respond to its own architecture, site and community.

Proven elements can be carried forward. Lessons from completed projects can inform the next. Planning and delivery become more familiar and predictable.

Over time, this creates faster activation, greater cost predictability, consistent quality and potential design efficiencies across future centres.

Consistency where it matters. Individuality where it counts.

Create an outdoor environment worthy of your centre.

If you’re planning a new childcare centre or a significant whole-of-yard development, bring ULP into the conversation early.

We’ll work with your project team to turn the outdoor environment into an integral part of the centre from the beginning.

© An original Playform designEvery Playform environment is an original Urban Landscape Projects (ULP) product, refined through decades of school landscape experience. All designs, drawings, documentation, imagery, graphics and visual content are the intellectual property of Urban Landscape Projects and are supplied exclusively for approved Playform projects. No part of this material may be copied, reproduced, adapted, distributed or used, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of Urban Landscape Projects.