LOOK: A Children’s Play Garden Is Now Open for All at Luneta Park
It is open for all.
(SPOT.ph) Perhaps one of the most resonant collective learnings of the 2020’s so far is that people are not meant to be cooped up indoors over long periods of time. It’s a widely shared sentiment, as signified by the amount of open spaces that have popped up in Metro Manila these past couple years in order to motivate people to head out and touch some grass. Adding to that list is the Children's Play Garden in Luneta Park, Manila.
Having just formally opened in late November, the park is an open-air playground for kids, featuring swing sets, slides, seesaws, and a climbing pyramid. More than just a place for kids to play around in, the park is also a garden that consists of “newly planted native trees and plants,” which are meant to expand the parkgoers’s knowledge of our local flaura and fauna, widening the canvas on all things nature.
The play garden is open from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily. You’ll find the entrance to the park near the Quirino Grandstand. And yes, entrance is free.
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What is the Children’s Play Garden in Luneta Park?
Executive Director of the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC) Cecille A. Lorenzana-Romero said that the new Children’s Play Garden has been a project long in development, saying:
"Since the pandemic, and the closure of the Children’s Playground in the Eastern Section of Rizal Park, many park-goers and the public have been clamoring for a children’s play facility inside our park. This call was answered when Aina Valencia approached NPDC in February 2022 with a dream to do civic engagement work with children through art in the outdoors, creative play, education, and urban gardening inside Rizal Park."
A legacy project part of Piandre Salon’s 35th Anniversary, the Children’s Play Garden was donated by Piandre Salon’s owner Rosalinda Francisco and was the product of collaboration between Piandre, the NPDC, Lydia Robledo, architect Andrew Tan, and artist Aina Zulueta-Valencia, who is also the sister of the salon's general manager Andrea Lorenzana.
You can check out the making of the park via the Instagram account @anativetreegarden. A quick look shows that the park first broke ground in March this year. Apart from planting native trees like the Katmon, Kulatingan, Bolon, and more, they also used recycled plastic lumber and even reused one ton of plastic waste for the playground structures.
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Take a look at the Children's Play Garden in Luneta Park:
