The hearth of west, the playground that transmits the history of Vícar

The Almería City Council of Vícar has put into operation a new playground designed by Galopín Playgrounds. It is a space conceived from the historical, cultural and patrimonial personality of the population itself, in which the milestones and characteristics that have defined the town throughout its history are represented. Here pedagogy, tradition and leisure are combined in a specific urban environment that aspires to be an icon in which elements of collective memory are represented, as well as being a place of large-scale social interaction in the urban planning of the municipality.

The space is deployed on an approximate surface of 7,000m2 and a slope of 8 meters, in which three play areas are integrated: Vícar Monumental, Vícar Doméstico and Vícar Rural.

In the first of the zones the iconic monumental aspects of the town have been reinterpreted. It’s formed by a large 6 m high hill whose summit is presided over by a representation of the Vícar Tower, one of its most representative heritage assets. The hill also consists of different climbing elements such as network footbridges, structures with ropes, steps, climbs, and embankments, slides, tubes or tunnels of sliding buried in the ground. In the lower part there is a tribute to the granary of Vícar, where life games like swings and springs or our truck have also been arranged.

The central zone represents the Vícar Doméstico, reflecting the traditional architectures of the municipality that give much of its personality: aqueducts, houses, town hall, cars or bushes. Here a circuit is established to walk through, with a play space for the little ones. It also has a picnic area and a newsstand,, and existing trees have been maintained to provide shade.

Finally, a last area is articulated that remembers the rural and agricultural Vícar, representing one of its most identifying elements: the greenhouses. These are materialized through a large network structure on a grid, in an area where trampolines and swings are also located.

The City Council of Vícar couns in this way has an integrating park that functions as a unifying nucleus of its social life, at the same time that it transmits the trace of its history. A space where the children of the municipality can identify themselves, together with their parents and grandparents, with the ancestors who for centuries walked on the same ground.