Vault Playground
Product + Space
In a former bank branch in Neerach, the new meeting place “Lokal 17” has opened – complete with a very special playground for kids. We were given free rein in the empty vault: alongside the three-storey playground with its vault door, gold-coin pool, bank counter, pulley and coin marble run, we created a crime audio play for kids that sends them hunting for fingerprints in the vault to catch the bank robbers. For both the design concept and the audio play, we brought kids aged 7 to 12 into the creative process.
Services
Design, concept and execution by Soda Studios.
Timber construction by Werk36 GmbH.
Audio play production by Philip Merian. Thanks to Simon Imiso for the great collaboration.
Client
Lokal17, Reformierte Kirche Steinmaur & Neerach
Ground floor — The vault
Kids step through a chunky golden vault door into a money bin that’s a nod to Scrooge McDuck’s famous gold dive. Armed with shovels, they can scoop gold coins into money bags and haul them up out of the vault to the second floor with a pulley.
First floor — The bank counter
The first floor is home to the bank counter, where kids can count and keep track of more than 20,000 gold coins and 150 gold bars. Some of the bars carry the bank robbers’ fingerprints – it’s up to the kids to find them and check them against the fingerprint database. And, of course, a security camera keeps an eye on the whole bank.
Second floor – The jail
Right at the top, the jail doubles as a cosy reading corner for a breather. In front of the mugshot wall, kids can snap a Polaroid for the guestbook. A wooden chest holds costumes for police officers, bank robbers, bank clerks and reporters. Money bags get pulled up here with the pulley – and then the coins roll all the way back down to the vault on the gold-coin marble run.
Audio play – Dä Bankraub in Neerach
We wrote and developed the audio play about the Neerach bank robbery together with kids aged 7 to 11. The basic idea for the story and all the characters’ names came straight from them. Philip Merian and Céline Schulthess helped us polish the storyline and supported us with the production and studio recordings.
