a stockholm park is dotted with these colorful playground spheres by andrénfogelström

swedish architecture studio andrénfogelström completes its vårbergstoppen playground spheres, space for playing, climbing and hiding in stockholm. vårbergstoppen is a constructed hill in the city’s southern suburbs. the artificial landscape was created in the 1960’s using masses from the construction of the new subway lines. city landscape architect holger blom lead the work of creating the two artificial peaks surrounding a perfectly round crater with a diameter of 100 meters (328 feet). the perfect geometries of the constructed landscape worked as inspiration for our work, designing a bird watching tower, viewing platforms, signs, and playground equipment for the public park.

andrénfogelström speckles its playground spheres near the entrance of a park in stockholm, aimed for children of all ages. the landscaped park had been developed by the city to serve the continuous densification of its vårberg and skärholmen suburbs. the project is realizede in collaboration with land arkitektur, who was responsible for the overall landscape architecture of the playground.

one playground sphere takes shape as a large orange ball, perched along the steep slope of the hill. it appears to roll down but is safely anchored to the ground. the perforated metal filters the light from outside during the day, and at night the illuminated interior lets out a soft glow. in the winter it acts as a starting point for the sledding slope, and in summer it works as destination for little climbers of the hill.

younger children in the sandbox can hide in three smaller playground spheres, built by andrénfogelström from solid wood. these are positioned at a safe climbing height. one sphere has a slide, another one has a little bench and small holes for peeking out. the wooden spheres are machined from solid pieces of fir using a large cnc router. the inside is painted orange with linseed oil paint, and the outside is treated with linseed oil to withstand the hardships of the swedish winter.

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high wood sphere, elevations

large steel sphere, elevations

low wood sphere, elevations

wood sphere with slide, elevations

project info:

project title: vårbergstoppen playground spheres

architecture: andrénfogelström | @andrenfogelstrom

location: stockholm, sweden

design team: moa andrén, tove fogelström, daniel backlund, pär falkenäng, oskar wallin, sara sandkvist gustafsson

landscape architecture: land arkitektur, tora bärnarp

structural engineer: AFRY, ulrika jansson

completion: 2021

photography: clément morin, brendan austin