Giant Whale – Korora Park, Ahipara

A climbable whale is a different proposition from a whale sculpture. Play equipment has to satisfy fall heights, entrapment rules, impact surfacing and inspection regimes that no ordinary public artwork faces, so a structure that is simultaneously a convincing animal and a compliant playground is a genuinely demanding piece of design. Very few oversized objects in either country have to pass that test.

Ahipara sits at the southern end of Ninety Mile Beach, in the Far North, and it is a small settlement a long way from the places that usually get infrastructure of this quality. A destination playground here is a deliberate investment in a community that could easily have been given a swing set.

The subject fits the coast. Whales pass along this shore, and the wider Far North has a long and continuing relationship with them – including strandings that draw whole communities out onto the sand.

As for the material used and the measurements – nothing.