Urban95: Lusaka and Chongwe

Getting started

Superpool's first visit to Lusaka and Chongwe in November 2025 marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration. Together with the Van Leer Foundation, we met with the mayors and municipal teams, explored potential playground sites, engaged local contractors, and facilitated a pop-up play session with local partners. These early conversations helped define the first playground projects and establish a shared direction for the programme.

Playwork training

The playwork programme grew out of an Istanbul study visit in the summer of 2025, when programme coordinators from Lusaka and Chongwe joined Superpool to experience pop-up adventure play in practice and take part in an introductory training. Recognising it as an accessible and effective way to activate public spaces, the councils asked Superpool to develop a dedicated playwork programme. Delivered in January and March 2026, the programme brought together staff from housing and community development departments alongside NGO and school partners from Lusaka and Chongwe. Since then, both councils have established regular pop-up adventure play sessions, embedding playwork into their own programmes and community events.

Pilot playgrounds

The first pilot playground, completed at a kindergarten in Matero in 2026, demonstrates how nature-based play can emerge from local materials, landscape and craft. Earth forms, timber, stone and sand replace conventional playground equipment, while a dry river landscape and a new borehole connect play with water management and improve the kindergarten's daily water supply. The same approach is now being expanded through a second pilot at Chongwe Play Park, adapting these principles to a neighbourhood-scale public park.

Documented learnings

The pilot playgrounds are being treated as learning projects as much as construction projects. Superpool is bringing together site records, meeting notes and a post-project survey with everyone involved to reflect on what worked, what proved difficult and what should change next time. As the review develops, it is capturing both technical and practical lessons from design, procurement and construction, informing a growing set of standard details for future locally built early-years playgrounds.

Tisobele!

Working with Zambian designers Chaila Putta and Joseph Taonga Zulu, Superpool developed Tisobele ("Let's Play"), a shared identity for play in Lusaka and Chongwe. Adopted by both councils, the brand provides a common language for playgrounds, pop-up adventure play, community events and future play initiatives across the two cities.

Urban95 is a project of the Van Leer Foundation