Children in the Lankwitz neighbourhood of Berlin have opened a park that they designed themselves, featuring a table tennis table, "whisper megaphones" and insect-friendly plants.

Berlin children design their own park

On May 15, children in Berlin’s southwestern neighbourhood of Lankwitz opened a park modelled on their very own blueprint.

The park’s opening comes five years after children at the school, Paul-Schneider-Grundschule first put their heads together to design a playground with trainees at the Department for Roads and Green Spaces.

“A few years ago, there was a wasteland here. Today a wonderful children’s playground has been opened,” parliamentary group leader Olemia Flores Ramirez (SPD) told Berliner Zeitung at the opening.

Children opt for slides and insect-friendly plants

To fill the 2.200-square-metre park children chose play installations for all ages, with the centrepiece of the sandy area being a covered, red and yellow slide.

The slide is accessible via a climbing or hanging wall, a loop bridge or ladders. Other parts of the park are fitted with a kaleidoscope and connected megaphones for children to whisper to each other from across the space.

Able to choose which kinds of plants would feature in the park, children opted for the most bird and bee-friendly species available.

Thumb image credit: Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB / Shutterstock.com