Why go for playground safety flooring?

Worlds of Wonder at Noida

Children on a playground should chuckle, frolic and scream in joy—that’s the way it should be. But these sounds may quickly turn into loud cries and groans if they fall and get hurt. To avoid such trips from turning into accidents, many good schools and construction companies nowadays shield their playgrounds with rubberized safety flooring.

High standards

The Gateway School of Mumbai, Deonar which caters to the schooling needs of special children needed an infrastructure that met the international standards—a safe playground was an essential part of the agenda. “We wanted to create it outdoors which was functional and safe and could be used for a variety of purposes like ball games, riding a bicycle, and many more,” said Anuj Iyer, Lead Teacher at The Gateway School of Mumbai.

The school chose Ecoflex’s Playsafe Premium so that they can use variety of colours for their playground which will go with the theme of their school paints. The school is looking to take some of their students outdoors on to the Playsafe floor, to engage them better.

New India Assurance Park in Juhu, Mumbai

Hygiene consciousness

For the New India Assurance CHS garden in Juhu, hygiene, along with safety, was a key reason to re-design the flooring of the park’s play area. It had a grass lawn earlier. As children played on it for years, it had become barren and also unhygienic for kids to play. The new Playsafe installation has now made it more hygienic as less dirt accumulates on the floor. Moreover, it is also safe and kids can play freely without the fear of falls. A central attraction of the flooring is the rolling mounds with elevations from the ground covered by the Playsafe flooring.

“We elevated one portion of the park and completely covered it with Playsafe flooring.  Now, children can safely climb, jump, roll about, or simply lie down on the mounds. In fact, even adults can be seen reclining against them,” informed architect Gaurish Chandawarkar, Director, Design Cell, who did the landscaping for the park.

Extra safety

The international-grade amusement park, Worlds of Wonder, Noida, had a unique requirement when it came to safety flooring. The park had four pool areas where kids usually ran without much care on wet surface, potentially increasing the risk of falls and injuries.

Extra safety, thus, was high on the agenda of the park management. Since the footfalls at the park would be in thousands, especially on weekends and during holidays, the park management sought a customized flooring surface to withstand such high usage.

“The standard thickness is 36 mm, but the company requested for 40 mm for better cushioning. Due to huge traffic, Worlds of Wonder did not want the material to be compressed when a large number of people walk, play and run on the flooring at the same time,” said Captain Rakesh Agrawala, President – Projects at Ecoflex.

Client-expectations

Karda Constructions of Nashik traditionally used sand pits for children play areas at its residential complexes. Its residents however gave unfavourable feedback, making the builder re-think the flooring needs. The developer decided to make the shift to rubberized flooring, in order to avoid the disadvantages that come with sand flooring.

Rajesh Jagale, Project In-charge, Karda Constructions, pointed out, “The sand pits needed a great deal of maintenance as they gathered moisture and grime easily. Moreover, after playing in the pits children would leave traces of sand on other parts of the property. We also received complaints about some kids being allergic to sand.” The builder ensured that safety and hygiene were maintained at the play areas of five of its properties, with Ecoflex.