Photo Credit: ELEPHANTPLAY, INC.
It’s a tough balance to strike: kids want to have fun at the playground, but they must be safe. It takes a lot of planning and care to pass playground safety standards. For a while, playgrounds were fairly basic and lackluster because the American Society for Testing and Materials and Canadian Standard Association standards became more difficult to meet.
But now the face of park playgrounds is evolving as designers are developing innovative ways of meeting safety standards and maintaining play-value.
The Safety Obsession
Initially, a growing focus on safety risked compromising the very purpose of playgrounds. Teresa Hendy, a board member with the International Play Equipment Manufacturers Association and president of Site Masters Inc., noted that “every play area has risk, and in an all-out-effort to eradicate it, play equipment and designs had become dumbed-down and boring.”