Ambitious and far-sighted plans for a multi-media tactile centre about South Wales Coal Mining Heritage was proposed in the early nineties for a redundant coal mine in the Rhondda area of Wales. The project got funding and went ahead.
I didn’t go in for the coal mine interpretation, I was more interested in the exciting opportunity to design a themed garden and playscape on what had been an old shunting yards outside, where coal had been loaded onto railway wagons. The ‘garden’ area was quite small and when we first saw it, consisted of dereliction and black sludge- but by a short year later it had been miraculously transformed into my concept, the ‘Energy Zone’; a playground, with a theme based on the Formation of Coal.

For more information on this project and how it was designed contact John via this site.