THE PLAY WORKS LAUNCHES AUSTRALIAN-MADE NATURE PLAY PRODUCT LINE FOR LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
09 Aug 2023
For over 40 years Brisbane based company PlayWorks headed by General Manager Don Wark, has been designing and manufacturing playground equipment for schools, councils, landscape architects and developers. The company has been working with Australian timber for years and as nature play began to grow in popularity in the early 2000’s PlayWorks saw an opportunity to engage and inspire children through more natural play environments.
The range was created to connect kids to nature, fostering health, resilience, joy and a lifelong respect for the natural environment. As technology has become more omnipresent in kids’ lives – the company felt an increasing need to create playspaces that act as counterpoints to the increasingly isolated and digital lives of children.
The range celebrates the elements of sand, water and Australian timber, designed to mix and match a natural palette for the environment it exists in. Having worked with Landscape Architects for decades the team learned over the years that Australian Ironbark stands out as one of the best materials to use in nature-based play. Not only is it particularly suited to Australian conditions, but its durability rating makes it a superior material to work with than northern hemisphere timbers. 
“We’ve been producing nature-based play materials for a long time now, so it’s great to see that we can finally put a product range together that is available nationally from our factory in Queensland. Landscape Architects have been working with us for a while now helping to design the bespoke timber play structures made from our sustainable Australian Ironbark complementing sand and water elements that they use in their designs.” Don says.
Following the acquisition of PlayWorks by parent company The Play Collective (PlayCo), Don took the concept to PlayCo Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Henry Greenacre who jumped at the chance to launch a product range using local designers, materials and suppliers. PlayCo CEO Henry Greenacre has been a huge supporter of the initiative and bringing this to life as a new offering and now part of the broader PlayCo offering, “Whilst PlayCo was created only recently to harness the expertise of our subsidiaries, it has been an incredible journey to see this play out in one of our first initiatives in the launch of Natura. Initially this product will be available through PlayWorks and the Queensland based ForPark team, with a national rollout by end of year.”
Get in touch with The Play Works team via the links below.
