Playform+ for Schools
Exceptional school environments, shaped around your community.
Playform+ is our design and construction service for schools ready to create something more ambitious.
We bring together play, outdoor learning, landscape, sport, movement and gathering into one considered environment, shaped around the school, its students and the way the campus is used.
Built on the ULP Playform Design System, Playform+ gives our designers greater freedom to respond to the character and opportunities of each school while retaining the proven thinking, components and delivery experience behind Playform.
A greater level of design. The confidence of a proven system.
We design environments, not just playgrounds.
A great school environment should do much more than fill a playground with equipment.
It should give students different reasons to be outside.
Places to move and challenge themselves. Places to play and imagine. Places to learn. Places to gather with friends. Places to retreat. Places to connect with nature.
Playform+ allows us to look beyond individual pieces of equipment and consider how landscape, play and learning can work together across the site.
The result is an outdoor environment that feels like part of the school rather than something that has simply been installed within it.
Designed around your school.
Every school is different.
Its students. Its culture. Its architecture. Its landscape. Its history. The way people move through the campus. The way teachers use outdoor spaces. The opportunities hidden within the site.
These things should influence the design.
Playform+ gives our team the scope to respond to them.
We use the Playform Design System as our foundation, then configure, adapt and develop proven Playform and Accent elements around the particular requirements of the project. This ULP-led approach is central to Playform+.
Proven thinking. Project-specific design.
Capture student voice. Activate your community.
Students understand their school grounds in ways adults often don’t.
They know where people gather. Where play happens. Which spaces are loved. Which spaces are avoided. And what they wish they could do outside that they cannot do today.
Our Student Workshop gives students a genuine voice in the development of their future environment.
It is not a token consultation exercise, and we don’t ask students to design the playground for us.
We listen.
We explore how they experience the campus, what matters to them and what they would like their outdoor environment to provide.
ULP then brings that insight together with the school’s vision, site conditions, landscape, project requirements and our professional design expertise.
The Student Workshop informs the design. ULP leads it.
Bring the whole environment together.
Playform+ gives us the opportunity to consider the school grounds as an interconnected landscape.
Depending on the project, that can bring together:
- playgrounds and active play
- outdoor learning
- nature and discovery
- sports and movement
- gathering and social spaces
- quiet and retreat spaces
- landscape and planting
- shade and seating
- circulation and connections
Rather than solving each requirement separately, we look for opportunities for one part of the environment to achieve several things at once.
A landscape edge can become seating. A level change can become play. A pathway can connect learning, movement and gathering. Planting can provide shade, seasonal change, habitat and a stronger sense of place.
That’s where landscape-led playground design becomes something much richer than equipment selection.
The Playform Design System
Great design doesn’t need to start from zero every time.
ULP has spent decades designing and building environments for children. That experience has allowed us to develop a library of proven Playform and Accent building blocks that our designers understand deeply.
With Playform+, those elements become the foundation rather than the finished answer.
We combine and develop them around the school, creating an environment that is distinctive to the project while retaining the efficiencies and accumulated knowledge of the Playform system.
It gives our designers more room to create without throwing away what we already know works.
We design what we build.
ULP has been designing and building outdoor environments since 1990.
That connection between design and construction shapes the way we work.
Our designers understand materials, detailing, compliance and buildability because their work ultimately has to become a real environment.
Our construction teams understand the design intent because they are delivering work developed within the same ULP team.
That creates continuity from the first conversation through to the finished landscape.
One team. One vision. One responsibility.
A clear path from idea to delivery.
Playform+ gives larger projects room for genuine design development while retaining a structured process.
Following qualification and site consultation, the project is activated. The Student Workshop then brings student voice into the process before ULP leads the design through development and delivery. The workshop takes place after activation, and ULP leads the design through to handover.
- 01UnderstandWe learn about your school, students, site, priorities and ambitions for the outdoor environment.
- 02ActivateThe Activation Agreement establishes the project and allows the design process to begin.
- 03ListenOur Student Workshop captures the experiences and ideas of the students who use the campus every day.
- 04DesignULP brings student voice, the school brief, landscape and our Playform Design System together into a resolved design.
- 05DeliverProcurement is completed and our team carries the design through construction and handover.
From the first conversation to students experiencing the completed environment, ULP remains responsible for bringing the vision to life.
Built for what comes next.
Schools evolve.
Enrolments change. Teaching changes. Campuses grow. Priorities shift.
We design with that future in mind.
Trees mature. Landscape develops. Equipment eventually changes. New projects are added. Spaces begin to be used in ways nobody predicted.
A strong outdoor environment provides a framework capable of evolving with the school rather than becoming an obstacle to what happens next.
That’s why we think beyond the immediate playground boundary and consider how today’s project can contribute to the campus for years to come.
Create a place students will remember.
The best school environments become part of the experience of growing up.
They are where friendships form, challenges are overcome, games are invented, lessons move outside and everyday school life happens.
That’s what we want Playform+ to create.
Not simply a new playground. A place that belongs to your school and the students who bring it to life.
© 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.