North Park
Fort Worth, Texas
When the City of Fort Worth, Texas, decided to add a new playground at North Park, they wanted to create something unique. Mounds, or hills, are one of the newest innovations in today's playgrounds, and this type of equipment would add just the right touch to the play environment that they were conceptualizing.
It was quickly discovered that creating a mound, or hill, was not as straightforward as one might think. Using fill dirt is not a great option, as it tends to erode rather quickly. Using natural plants or grass in a high-traffic playground mound is not a realistic option, as the plants will likely not survive this type of high traffic environment. Grass cannot be maintained on the type of slope needed for an embankment slide. Compacted rock is better, but then needs to be stabilized with a concrete surface, which is both time-consuming and costly. Either of these solutions also needs to be meticulously detailed by a landscape architect, so that the final product matches expectations.
Given all of these obstacles, a play mound (or hill) was starting to seem impractical. That's where webuildfun, a Dallas-based equipment supplier, and UPC Parks, a themed playground manufacturer, came in.
Webuildfun suggested to the City of Fort Worth that they could use one of UPC Parks' new precast concrete Modular Mounds. New for 2022, these mounds ship from the factory in four main parts. These are then assembled at the playground location into a Mound. The model chosen for North Park was the 5-foot-tall Jubilee Hill. This innovative Modular Mound has a handful of ways to climb to the top, as well as a 5-foot-tall slide to get back to ground level. The climbing options include a double rope climb up a rock wall, clusters of stump steppers and a winding play trail.
The Jubilee Hill at North Park is also fully ADA accessible. It has an ADA transfer point built into the lower slope, and the upper slopes are accessible using the rubber play surface that is placed on top of the precast concrete surface.
The new playground at North Park has much to offer children of all ages. This is especially true of the new, and very unique, Jubilee Hill Modular Mound.
