News & Resources

Planning a commercial indoor play space involves a lot of decisions that are difficult to research, because the honest answers tend to live with the people building these environments rather than in anything published. We have spent decades designing, producing and installing them across the United States, Europe and the Middle East. These guides are what we have learned.

Design and planning guide →

Most buyers start by choosing a structure they like and then try to fit it into their building. It is almost always the wrong order.

Ceiling height, floor plan, column positions and sprinkler layout decide what can actually be built — and usable height is always less than a tape measure suggests once ductwork, lighting and sprinkler heads are accounted for. Age range matters just as much. Children aged one to four need low, unstructured play that encourages them to interact, because the cognitive, physical and social skills at that stage develop almost entirely through playing alongside other children. Multi-level soft-contained structures are built for ages five to twelve, where climbing and physical challenge hold attention. Designing one and assuming the other will make do is the most common and most expensive mistake we see.

Start with the building and the options open up. Start with a rendering and you spend the next month finding out what has to be cut.

Covers the physical constraints of your space, designing for the right age groups, and how materials and components affect how a play area holds up over time.‍ ‍

Safety and compliance guide →

Every company in this industry says their equipment is safe. Very few will hand you the documentation that proves it.

Commercial indoor play equipment is governed by ASTM, CPSC and CSA standards, along with European regulations that are stricter in several respects. But compliance is not a claim — it is a set of documents. Component certification, structural design records, and confirmation that installation was completed to specification. A supplier building to standard has these on file and will produce them without hesitation.

This guide explains what each standard actually covers and what to request from every supplier you are considering, including us. If a company hesitates, the hesitation is your answer.

Covers the standards that apply to commercial indoor play equipment, the documentation to ask for before you sign, and the design decisions that make a play area safe in practice rather than on paper.

Guides by facility type →

A play area in a church has almost nothing in common with one in a family entertainment center. Not the traffic pattern, not the supervision model, not the approval process, and not the design that makes it work.

Church play areas sit empty most of the week and then absorb heavy use in two or three concentrated hours, which drives durability and how fast the space can be cleared and secured. Childcare operators are constrained by licensing requirements that vary by jurisdiction and often dictate age separation, sightlines and equipment height. For an entertainment or recreation facility, the structure is revenue-generating floor space, so throughput and dwell time matter more than square footage. Hospitality play areas are usually unsupervised and subject to a brand standard, which narrows the options considerably.

Same equipment category, four genuinely different design problems.

Covers churches and ministries, daycare and schools, family entertainment and recreation, and hospitality — with more added as we publish them.

Projects and case studies →

Renderings are easy. These are finished.

Each project shows what we were actually working with — the ceiling height, the footprint, the constraint that made it difficult — followed by the design decision that solved it and how the space is being used now. Where clients have given permission, their assessment is included alongside ours.

They also show how we work: one design built for one specific building, one quotation covering design, production, shipping and installation, and installation carried out by our own crews.

Covers installed work across churches, entertainment and recreation facilities, childcare and hospitality, with new projects added as they complete.