CatalyticAction

ECOPLAY

Beirut,
Lebanon

2023

143 m²

78

Partners: AUB Neighbourhood Initiative, Ahla Fawda

Funding: PROCOL Lebanon

Collaborators: ReFuse, PlastcLab, Abdul Rahim Shaman, Beirut Municipality

EcoPlay is an eco-friendly playground intervention that forms part of the EcoHub—a vibrant, creative space established by the Ahla Fawda NGO in the heart of Beirut. It is designed with the bold mission of restoring ecosystems and promoting sustainability through creativity and community engagement. EcoPlay aims to provide a play area for all community members, created using discarded materials.

This space invites everyone to immerse themselves in a lively, inclusive environment filled with unique play elements, sensory features, greenery, and seating areas. Every corner is thoughtfully designed to inspire joy, foster creativity, and strengthen our connection to the environment—making EcoPlay a playground that blends fun with environmental awareness.

Where Did It All Start?

The vision for EcoPlay was to create a playful, inclusive environment for everyone, built entirely from discarded materials. To bring this vision to life, we adopted a participatory approach, engaging residents and key stakeholders to explore eco-friendly design ideas. Together, we sourced locally available materials from various places, including junkyards, vegetable markets, tyre shops, print shops, and recycling centres. These materials included plastic bottle caps, car tyres, plastic vegetable crates, wooden pallets, metal pipes, PVC pipes, metal barrels, retired bicycle wheels, and flex banners.

A key collaboration with the Lebanese startup PlastcLab enabled us to transform plastic bottle caps into durable tabletops, adding both functionality and sustainability to the project.

“I am happy to see that we can use old tires in fun and useful ways rather than burning them and causing pollution."

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Located next to a busy road, we used retired flex banners to create a colourful visual separator, weaving them onto the wire mesh with the help of residents and passers-by. We also experimented with alternative flooring surfaces; for example, we replaced the asphalt with plastic bottle caps to create a vibrant, colourful pathway. EcoPlay features a variety of play items, sensory elements, greenery, bright colours, tables, and seating areas, creating an engaging and inviting environment for all.

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“The space shows us the journey of recyclables starting from the sorting centre where everyone is handing the material, to this space that was built using them.”

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