New Zealand artist Mike Hewson has designed a public playground in Melbourne referred to as Rocks on Wheels, which options 24 huge, rough-hewn bluestone boulders.
Set on what appears like furnishings boulders, the boulders have been positioned on Melbourne’s Southbank Boulevard to create an open surroundings for youngsters to intuitively climb and discover.
![Mike Hewson's Rocks on Wheels playground sculpture in Melbourne](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2022/12/rocks-on-wheels-mike-hewson-melbourne-playground_dezeen_2364_col_14-852x568.jpg)
“[The boulders are] resting delicately, as if it had lately rolled into place and the sunshine brake mechanism engaged,” Hewson informed Dezeen.
“The easy conventional play tools appears caught to the boulders, maybe as if some raunchy neighborhood group assembled it on the weekend,” he defined. “Leftover items of development waste relaxation within the recesses of the stone, typically performing as helpful handholds for the adventurous youngster to hold on to.”
![miniature figure holding up boulders at Mike Hewson's sculpture at the Rocks on Wheels playground in Melbourne](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2022/12/Detail-Mike-Hewson-Rocks-on-Wheels-playground-Melbourne_dezeen_2364_col_8-852x568.jpg)
There are not any railings or platforms within the playground. Slides, swings, monkey bars, ropes and a linear sand pit join the areas in and across the boulders.
Various small objects – together with miniature animals, toy vehicles, a backyard hose and different home goods – have been hidden all through the venture to ‘reward exploration’.
![Mike Hewson's Rocks on Wheels playground sculpture in Melbourne](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2022/12/rocks-on-wheels-mike-hewson-melbourne-playground_dezeen_2364_col_15-852x568.jpg)
The ground floor across the boulders seems to be bluestone pavers, much like what you’ll discover in Melbourne. They’re really smooth mats, made to seem like an everyday Melbourne pavement.
The Bolovians got here from the identical Victorian quarry that provides the bluestone pavers for Melbourne’s streets.
Various ‘runaway legs’ have been distributed all through the broader Southbank Boulevard space as an invite to the playground.
Situated on what was previously a street, the $2.four million venture takes its identify from a 1962 photograph by Diane Arbus, Rocks on Wheels, which depicts pretend rocks being put into place on furnishings carts at Disneyland, California.
The “weightless absurdity” of the pretend rocks in Arbus’s photograph was replicated at Southbank, solely the stones at Southbank are actual, and the bolstered bogies beneath have been integrally and punctiliously designed to help them.
![circular monkey bars at Mike Hewson's Rocks on Wheels playground sculpture in Melbourne](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2022/12/rocks-on-wheels-mike-hewson-melbourne-playground_dezeen_2364_col_11-852x568.jpg)
There was initially some concern within the Australian media when the playground opened in November 2022 that it was dangerous or unfinished, however Jocelyn Chiew, director of the Metropolis of Melbourne’s Metropolis Design Studio, informed Dezeen that “it was designed with security as a elementary precedence “. .
“The design and development was rigorously examined by the venture staff and permitted by the play area auditor, DMC Design,” she defined.
“The ideas and advantages of ‘free play’, ‘nature play’ and ‘dangerous play’ in public area are nicely documented, however hardly ever have they been so comprehensively included and expressed in public area as they’re at Southbank’s Rocks on Wheels .”
![Children play on the Rocks on Wheels playground, Mike Hewson's sculpture in Melbourne](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2022/12/rocks-on-wheels-mike-hewson-melbourne-playground_dezeen_2364_col_12-852x568.jpg)
The venture is a part of a $44 million council improve to create public area within the densely populated Melbourne suburb of Southbank.
Melbourne Metropolis Council offered web site design, panorama structure, industrial design, venture administration and horticultural providers.
![plastic bucket at Mike Hewson's Rocks on Wheels playground sculpture in Melbourne](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2022/12/rocks-on-wheels-mike-hewson-melbourne-playground_dezeen_2364_col_2-852x568.jpg)
Mike Hewson has accomplished 5 large-scale public artwork commissions in Australia, a lot of them sculpture-park-come-playgrounds. Its objective is to find new methods to merge conceptual artwork initiatives into the general public area.
Different latest initiatives for playgrounds and playscapes embody an architectural playground in Doha that includes miniature variations of 4 well-known buildings within the metropolis, and a collection of 5 pink marble play sculptures in Billund, Denmark.
Picture by Mike Hewson.