How can a beloved off-leash dog park and a protected wetland coexist — without collapsing into “nature versus public”?

At Zandvlei Estuary, this project treats play as a way of knowing the site. Running the parkrun, walking with companion dogs, mapping textures, access, and the everyday rituals people already keep here — the research reveals how people, dogs, and ecologies co-produce this landscape together, rather than compete for it.

From this emerge two key interventions.

The Companion Pathway follows the existing parkrun track, strengthening an informal movement pattern that was already there rather than laying down a new one — choreographing attention and care into a route people already run and walk without thinking twice about it.

The WOOF Clubhouse is a light-touch, wind-breaking timber structure at the bridge, hosting dog-training zip lines, pop-up adoption events, shared tables, lookout decks, and habitats built for more than one species at a time.

None of this amounts to a grand gesture. These are small, repeatable scripts of care — picking up sticks, collecting litter, stacking stones, watching tides. Rooted in the idea of companion species, the project frames repair and maintenance as ongoing multispecies practices, never once-off fixes.

On a site shaped by wind, uneven municipal care, and deep attachment, the proposal works with what already exists — volunteer groups, informal paths, playful infrastructures — cultivating what might be called response-ability: learning, together, how to hold everyday recreation and ecological repair in the same frame.