Bird Nest Playground

Changchun, China

A Nature-Inspired Playground at Beihu Wetland

Every spring, thousands of migratory birds cross mountains, rivers, and lakes to return to Beihu Wetland in Changchun, China. They gather branches, build nests, raise their young, and make their homes among the lush vegetation and abundant waterways.

For Beihu Wetland, this annual return is part of nature’s enduring rhythm of life. For children, nature itself can become a playground—an environment filled with curiosity, imagination, and endless possibilities for exploration.

Located adjacent to Changchun Beihu National Wetland Park, the playground draws inspiration from the rich bird ecology and natural character of the wetland. From the beginning of the design process, we asked:

What kind of play space could coexist with the wetland landscape without disturbing it?

The answer emerged from the reeds and branches: the bird’s nest.

Design Concept

Inspired by Birds, Designed as a Nest

The diverse bird habitat of Beihu Wetland became the starting point for the design. The bird’s nest was abstracted into the project’s core design language, while the ideas of nesting, returning, and flying are woven throughout the entire playground.

Rather than introducing an isolated play structure into the landscape, the design seeks to establish a dialogue between play and nature. The layout follows the existing site conditions, integrating the play structures with trees, vegetation, and open green spaces.

The playground is conceived as an extension of the natural environment—a place where children can climb, explore, move, and imagine while remaining connected to the landscape around them.

Spatial Experience

A Bird Nest Playground That Grows into the Landscape

A series of nest towers in different sizes and forms are distributed among the trees, creating the impression of a bird colony gradually emerging from the landscape.

Golden reed-like elements add a warm, natural accent to the structures, complementing the green columns and timber tones. Migratory bird sculptures perch on the tower tops, creating a sense of movement and anticipation—as if they might take flight above the trees at any moment.

Elevated walkways connect the nest towers, forming a continuous three-dimensional play network. The varied heights, overlapping structures, and changing perspectives create a rich spatial sequence for children to discover.

The experience moves continuously from ground to sky, climbing to sliding, exploration to rest.

Children can climb progressively through the nest towers, navigate elevated platforms and walkways, and finally descend from the highest point through an extra-long slide.

Play Experience

Multiple Ways to Play, Endless Opportunities to Explore

The playground is organized as a multi-level, unpowered play environment that encourages active movement, physical challenge, and independent exploration.

Climbing & Exploration
Climbing nets, nest towers, and platforms at different heights provide progressive physical challenges, allowing children to explore at their own pace.

Elevated Movement
A network of elevated walkways connects the themed nest towers, creating a continuous route through the playground and encouraging children to discover new spaces from different heights.

Sliding & Flying
High-level slides connect climbing with rapid descent, transforming the journey upward into an exhilarating moment of release.

Balance & Agility
Hammock nets, rope slopes, balance elements, tube slides, and net swings are integrated throughout the structures, encouraging children to run, jump, crawl, climb, balance, swing, and slide.

Family Interaction
The nest-inspired structures use an open, lightweight slat system that maintains visual permeability. The transparent spatial configuration allows parents to remain visually connected with their children while giving children the freedom to explore independently.

A Playground Shaped by Nature

The Bird Nest Playground is not simply a collection of play equipment. It is an attempt to translate the ecological character of Beihu Wetland into a spatial experience for children.

Through the language of the nest, the project connects habitat and play, nature and imagination, exploration and discovery.

Here, children do not simply visit nature.

They climb into it, move through it, and make it their own.