Landscape architects are encouraging the Queensland Education Department to use more natural surfaces, such as real grass, in new schools. Sandra Godwin explains.
The QLD Education Department’s decision to use more natural surfaces in schools was a source of delight for students at the $73 million Everleigh State School when stage one opened this year at Greenbank, west of Beenleigh.
Principal Mrs Nicole Wheatley said feedback from students and the community had been overwhelmingly positive.
“The kids love it,” she said. “They love our school grounds.”
As well as the new oval, where 9500 square metres of Stadium Sports Couch from Allenview Turf was laid, there is an area of grass near the resources centre and ANZAC garden.
“I believe there were initial plans for that to be all Astroturf,” Nicole said.
“But the landscape architect wanted to have more turf in there. So he made sure that there was a grassed area there, which the kids love playing on. And it’s really nice to just get the feel of real grass underneath your feet and your shoes.”
JFP Urban Consultants principal landscape architect, Glen English said the Department stipulated which surfaces to use, such as rubber and artificial grass under and around play equipment instead of bark, sand or turf.
Glen said they had pushed for the use of turf in an open central courtyard because there was no substitute for “real turf”.
“Sometimes we think that the tactile feel and the romance of natural turf is worth a little bit of extra effort and maintenance to give the kids a nice result,” he said.
“Artificial turf, particularly up here in summer, gets painfully hot, even with the fancy cooling products.
“We’ve pushed for that on a few other QLD education jobs as well. They were receptive to it in two particular instances – that school and Brisbane South Secondary College – where we took them on the journey, and they embraced what we were telling them.”
Glen said natural turf wouldn’t stand up to wear and tear under play equipment.
“But in the central courtyard area there, it’s a bit more open, and they can control the use of that,” he said. “They can lock it off for certain periods of time to allow it to regenerate. You couldn’t do that with a play area. There’d be nothing for the kids to do.”
Nicole said the grassed area would become a centrepiece once stage two of the school was opened in 2024.
It’s just as well the school’s first intake of students had access to that grass because the oval was off limits for the first term due to prolonged wet weather. More than 1092 millimeters of rain was recorded from January to March, forcing the postponement of the cross country to May and the athletics carnival to June.
Naturelink Landscapes and Design head estimator Nick Ugarte said they had worked on dozens of school contracts over the years.
The package at Everleigh included furniture, sandstone retaining walls, more than 30,000 mature trees and plants, irrigation systems, bike racks, sand pits and an ANZAC Memorial feature garden with flag poles and platform seating.
As well as covering the sports oval and courtyard, turf was brought in to fill in sections to meet the council verge.
“All up there’s about 17,000 square metres of Stadium Sports Couch and Wintergreen Couch, all from Allenview,” Nick said.
Allenview Turf operations manager Justin King said he was contacted by Naturelink to supply turf for the school last year.
They were originally looking for OZTUFF Couch, a variety that Allenview doesn’t produce, but were persuaded to use Stadium Sports Couch on the oval instead.
The turf was cut in spring and trucked to the site where it was laid by subcontractors over the course of a week.
Justin said he hoped other landscaping firms in south east QLD would be able to see how well the Stadium Sports Couch was suited to the job and consider using it in future.
Allenview Turf has about 200 hectares under turf and supplies Stadium Sports Couch, Empire Zoysia, Palmetto Buffalo and Wintergreen Couch mostly to commercial clients.