When developing a playground area for a residential area, your playground design needs to consider the needs of local residents. As a meeting point for the whole community and a space to play for children of all ages, the installation needs to accommodate a range of needs to keep people safe and happy.
PlaySmart has worked to provide quality playground surfaces for home development projects around the country. Residential areas have unique needs for safety, accessibility, and design to be successful. Therefore, here is our top advice that the current and future users of your space will love!
How does Outdoor Play Create a Healthy Environment for Children & Families?
Being outside is great for the all-round health and well-being of children. Having a space to play close to the home has been seen to reduce antisocial behaviours and improve community cohesion. The local park can become a social hub for local neighbourhoods to enjoy the fresh air together and make lasting connections.
Even a small green space is attractive to visitors and residents alike. Especially in urban parks in housing developments. So why not install a high-quality common space for fun and relaxation in your housing development plans?
Accessible, Safe Walkways
When designing a communal space in busy urban areas or near roads roads, keeping children safe from hazards is vital. The best surface for children’s play area sites can take this into account with clever playground design separating them from traffic.
Walkways should be durable, slip resistant and clearly marked as pedestrian pathways. Also, pathways surrounded with fencing, vegetation or bright colours can encourage kids to stay in designated areas, away from danger.
Rubber Mulch is the ideal surfacing material for this, the vibrant, durable rubber is cost-effective and requires minimal maintenance. The wide choice of colours and non-disruptive installation process means that you can incorporate safety pathways into your playground design or theme to guide children away from roads with intuitive surface design.
Water Permeable Pathways
Keeping walkways safe necessitates ensuring full and easy accessibility. Wide, flat pathways for buggy and wheelchair accessibility helps create a more inclusive playground.
Puddling or muddy ground reduces accessibility and removes the whole purpose of having pathways in the first place! Therefore, PlaySmart’s experts will work with you to perform a ground survey to provide the best playground surface options for your site.
JungleMulch is a water-permeable safety surface with minimal subbase requirements. Additionally, our SmartPave bonded rubber aggregates are fully porous to meet Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) requirements for built-up areas and housing developments.
Protecting Grass on Greenfield Site Play Surfaces
In suburban residential developments, playgrounds, play fields and sports pitches are a popular use of space. Green space and vegetation are important to maintaining an area’s natural atmosphere and feel, so safety surfacing that works with nature is a great solution.
Protecting grass with rubber grass mats in areas of heavy foot traffic, particularly under playground equipment, keeps your grass looking fresh, and reduces risks of injuries. Therefore, we recommend EcoSmart grass mats with SmartPlay shock absorbent underlay as innovative child safety playground flooring option. This solution reduces risks of sinking while also encouraging grass growth through the porous honeycombed structure of the mats.
Hybrid Grass to Keep your Site Green
In residential areas, upkeep of lawns, especially large areas of grass in football pitches can use a lot of water and require a lot of work. One solution to this is combining your natural grass with Hybrid Grass surfaces.
Hybrid Grass mats provide long-term durability to your grass area that looks natural and feels great all year round. These hybrid grass mats don’t require any groundwork. Therefore, your natural grass or seeded soil is not damaged and is able to grow alongside the synthetic grass materials right away.
Natural materials in a residential area creates an aesthetically pleasing space to play. This provides a visual separation from urban housing developments to enhance the play experience.
Whatever your Development Requires, PlaySmart has your back!
PlaySmart is a professional playground company with over 20 years of experience on large-scale projects and a client-first approach. Our expertise is ideal for to creating a safe space to play for any size development that your local community will love!
So why not fill in our handy contact form to request a callback or claim your Free Quote? Get started with PlaySmart to take your first step toward new professional surfacing for your site today!