Eden Project

Play equipment at the Eden Project

As part of our Festival of Play season, we’re offering loads of ideas on the themes of outdoor play and circus fun to keep your kids occupied this summer.

We love to encourage outdoor play among families, so we’ve engineered the landscape at Eden to help curious young minds explore their creativity. We’ve tried to make the whole site playful in one way or another, but there are specific features that attract children of all ages. Some of these features are described below. Which is your favourite?

Rainforest Biome

The Spice Boat

By Bill Mitchell and David Mynne

The drawers of this boat contain spices of all kinds. People love to dig in and get a good waft of the beautiful aromas. The plants that many of these spices come from are grown in the Biome!

The Core

The Plant Processor (aka ‘The Nutcracker’)

By Rob Higgs with cartoons by Tim Hunkin

Wind the handle of this people-powered automaton to learn about energy and processing.

Fridge Magnet Wall

By the Eden Team

We love seeing how our visitors create removable graffiti when they are presented with the freedom of this white space. We get people from all over the world leaving all kinds of lovely messages.

The Nest

By Mike Jones at Earthwrights

This playful structure outside the entrance to the Core appeals to younger kids, who love clambering over it, and older teenagers, who like to hang out on it.

Spiral Garden

By the Eden Team

This area behind the Core has all kinds of inspirational ideas for making a low-cost school or community garden in a small space on the north side of a building: willow spirals, rainbows of flowers, soft paths, and plants that are textured or spooky or scented.

Outdoor Biome

Bestival Tree

By Simon Hayward and Stuart Carter of Green Oak Cornwall

This ‘tree made of a tree’ using green woodworking techniques acts as a meeting place and play space up on the Bluff, near the Bridge. It is so named because we took it to the Bestival Festival in the Isle of Wight one year.

Bamboo Exploration, outside the Rainforest Biome

By the Eden Team

Kids love to get in among the bamboo plants and follow the paths. We like to encourage youngsters to get up close to the plants and literally get a feel for what makes them so special.

Mating Snakes Path, in The Garden near the Link

Inspired by Environmental Art, and redone by the Eden Team

People of all ages run through these tunnels of willow. The paths, which interweave like mating snakes, present people with a choice of which one to follow.

Cut-throughs

By the Eden Team

We’ve created these short cuts to make our longer paths more exciting for kids. The small size of the cut-throughs also makes children feel that they’re designed especially for them.

Eye holes on the Viewing Platform, outside the Visitor Centre

By the Eden Team

We were required by regulation to make the barrier on our Viewing Platform 1.1 metres high, so we added these holes to enable children and people in wheelchairs to see the full glory of the Eden site.

Tea Clipper, part of Tea exhibit

By the Eden Team with shipbuilder Alastair Guy

This ship, which has run aground in our Tea exhibit, was built using traditional techniques. It provides an engrossing short cut that many kids linger on to play for longer.

Willow Play Space

By the Eden Team

Willow is an incredibly versatile, cheap, and fast-growing material. Here we used it to make tunnels and teepees around a sandpit. The area also features timber perches, a throne and musical instruments. This enclosed space is the perfect, and safe, place for little kids to let off steam.

With thanks to Jane Knight, and to A-level Photography students at Truro College for the images

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• Play

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children, Design, Fun, kids, Play