On June 8, DA­DA & Projects of­fi­cial­ly hand­ed over a tree­house to the Aripo com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Aripo Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ed by adding fi­nal dec­o­ra­tive touch­es be­fore the of­fi­cial han­dover.

Orig­i­nal­ly de­signed for the Tacarigua Play­space Project, ap­proved in 2017 but lat­er dis­con­tin­ued due to re­design con­sid­er­a­tions, the tree house was ul­ti­mate­ly re­alised through col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween DA­DA and the Aripo Vil­lage Coun­cil. In­stal­la­tion artist Dean Arlen and ar­chi­tect Sean Leonard spear­head­ed the project, which was com­plet­ed be­tween 2024 and 2025.

The goal of the tree­house project is to show­case how lo­cal art and de­sign can en­rich pub­lic and com­mu­ni­ty spaces.

The ini­tia­tive of­fers op­por­tu­ni­ties for artists, ar­chi­tects and crafts­peo­ple in T&T, to cre­ate func­tion­al and vi­su­al­ly ap­peal­ing in­dige­nous art and de­sign pieces.

By specif­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ing on a play space, the project aims to es­tab­lish a safe en­vi­ron­ment for chil­dren and their care­givers, ig­nit­ing their imag­i­na­tions while en­hanc­ing the vi­su­al ap­peal of the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

Through the ac­tive in­volve­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty and chil­dren, this in­ter­ac­tive struc­ture has the po­ten­tial to nur­ture a sense of com­mu­ni­ty pride, uni­ty, and a deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion for in­dige­nous art and de­sign.