© Underdog Heavy Industries 1969-2011  Hart Hill Nursery School Hart Hill Nursery sits at the top of a steep hill and is blessed with a lot of outdoor space.  We have worked in phases over five years at this school creating a number of separate distinct areas with a unifying scheme. The first area we developed was simply a grassed mound largely surrounded by tarmac (click here to see what it was like).  We constructed two structures connected by a bridge with multiple routes through the space.  Around the back of the structure we added a lot of sympathetic planting and built a tunnel covered with clematis and ivy.  The route terminates in a slide leading down to rubber safety surface. In the second phase of development we added a ball-wall (shown to the right) which doubles as concealment for storage sheds and an extensive sound garden (shown at bottom left) which contains twelve different sound-makers or musical instruments including a one octave fully tuned xylophone. We then developed a totally separate area for the 0-3 year olds which included a teepee with coloured windows and a shelter wrapped around a beautiful cherry tree.  This area had to be super-safe so the geometry of all steps and stairs were changed and rubber safety surface used to protect children from any potential fall. In the next phases we brought the woodland strip alongside the school back into use by building an gatehouse allowing supervised access to the woodland areas.  This included making a woodland walk leading through the trees to a bird hide which allows small groups of children with binoculars to observe the wildlife in the trees and on the allotments beyond. We also build a large decorative bridge and a collection of colourful signs to delimit a bike track between the sound garden and the baby garden.