AJ Davis Reserve Playspace kicks goals at Australian Institue of Landscape Architects awards

AJ Davis Reserve playground in Airport West has just taken home a major design prize at the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) awards.

The play space was named winner of the 2025 AILA VIC Landscape Architecture Award for Play Spaces.

The AILA awards celebrate the best landscape architecture projects in Australia in a range of different categories. 

The playspace, opened in July 2023, includes a diverse range of nature play features which positively benefit children’s physical, social, cognitive and emotional development. The nature play elements include balancing logs, scrambling nets/rope course, dry creek bed, long and junior slides, accessible spinner, swing, new paths, shelter and a basketball hoop. The area also features new and existing Indigenous vegetation with a natural and neutral palette to blend in seamlessly with the surrounds.  

Kids playing at AJ Davis Reserve in Airport West

Judges said the Moonee Valley playspace capitalised on the site’s challenging topography by making it a key feature of the park. 

The playspace also demonstrates how site analysis and responsive design can lead to a unique playspace that sits sensitively in its place, they said. 

It’s a fitting time for Moonee Valley to win a playground award, with international exhibition The Playground Project Melbourne about to take up residence in Incinerator Gallery from June 28. To find out more about the award and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, visit the AILIA website.