Your Guide to Corkeen Play Surfacing

If you are unfamiliar with this surfacing option, let PlaySmart guide you through our wonderful playground safety flooring: Corkeen.

What is Corkeen?

Corkeen is the all-natural cork playground surface exclusively provided by PlaySmart, and could be the newest addition to your playground project. As natural playground ideas become more popular with both developers and playground users, sustainable cork playground surfaces are the best surface for children’s play areas with this concern, as well as providing many other benefits.

Cork flooring is central to many sustainable playground ideas, and our Corkeen is made from natural, renewable cork from the cork oak tree bark ethically sourced from Green Leader: Amorim. Sustainable solutions for playground tarmac have been at the forefront of modern playground design and development, and Playsmart is proud to be helping innovate play spaces across the country with our quality natural cork flooring.

Where is Cork Flooring Used?

Corkeen natural cork flooring is a versatile flooring option with installation recommended for a range of outdoor purposes to benefit the design of a space.

Corkeen Cork Flooring is best used in:

Playgrounds
Leisure Spaces
Recreational Areas
Places with Sport or Play Equipment
Running tracks
Playground and Park Pathways

What does Corkeen Installation Involve?

Our amazing installation team has 25 years of playground installation experience to create the smoothest and highest quality playground surfacing. Installation of Corkeen is a unique design for playground flooring, but our team has you covered!

Our 90% natural cork is installed on site in an innovative two-layer system: the wear-resistant top layer, and shock-absorbent base layer. These are constructed from cork granules and binders engineered to the highest quality as durable and reliable.

Production and installation of this material follow the eco-friendly principles of the Circular Economy, limiting waste through reusing and recycling throughout the product life-cycle. Therefore, we are proud to announce that PlaySmart’s Corkeen system has a negative carbon balance in line with UK ISO 14040/44 material sustainability standards.

The carbon sequestration of the cork oak forests exceed the CO2 emissions from Corkeen production. Through this, we have achieved a -10kg CO₂e/m² carbon balance for a 40mm thick Corkeen surface (25mm base layer & 15mm top layer). Amazing green innovation as the leading experts in UK play surfacing!

Benefits of Corkeen

Corkeen is a safe and durable surface for playgrounds suitable for any age or ability. The flat, shock-absorbent material is perfect for assuring full accessibility and reducing the risk of playground injury.

Here are a few of Corkeen’s key benefits that our customers love it for:

Water resistance with great drainage capacity- impermeable surfaces mean that the ground is protected from rain and ground-water seepage, making this perfect for areas where flooding or boggy ground are recurring problems.
Fire and heat resistance- Cork as a natural insulator is a great way to ensure safety from fire hazards on the playground.
Durable and long-lasting
High friction coefficient- To put this simply, the material is highly slip-resistant and stable, allowing easy accessibility for buggies and wheelchairs as well as keeping everyone safe.
Hypoallergenic and free from harmful chemicals.
Shock absorbent- the structure of Corkeen and the natural compressibility of the natural cork material reduce risks of damage from falls acting as a great safety surface option for soft play flooring.
Recyclable eco-friendly material- In the production of cork, the Cork Oak is not felled, the bark is instead peeled from the trunk every 9 years once matured. Therefore, Cork Oaks are long-lasting, with an average life expectancy of 200 years!

Is Corkeen Right for your playground?

Take our Quick Quiz to compare how your playground’s unique needs and conditions would best match with cork flooring and discover more about alternatives that PlaySmart offers. Finally answer the question of what is the best ground cover for a playground, pathway, or outdoor gym area with your exact ground quality, site size, and weather conditions.

Read our full and comprehensive brochure guide [pdf] for more details on PlaySmart’s Corkeen cork playground surface solutions

Get in touch today and our expert advisors will be happy to help guide you on your next playground project. Simply fill in our handy contact form or call our team at 01564 721811.