What's Best For Me

What's Best for Me?

Deciding what type of play equipment is going to best suit your needs is very important. As all Soft Brick designs are completely bespoke you can work very closely with your designer to create your perfect play area. Establishing a good brief is key to starting this process and helping you decide what’s best for me!

Soft Play vs Junior Adventure Play vs Main Adventure Play

These are the three main categories of new play area. Some larger play facilities will incorporate all of these types of play, but each can work just as well on their own in the right environment.

These types of play areas are great for:-

Soft Play is designed for younger users, but can cater for up to six year olds. This is a fully padded, fully soft play area with loose play products such as themed rockers, agility and bricks. This type of area can be designed as a Pack Away Kit too.

Budget Guide: Average is around £2,000.00 - £5,000.00 but can go as high as £10,000.00 depending on size.

Junior Adventure Play is designed for up to six year olds. This is an enclosed steel structure to incorporate Slides, Ballpools, Rollers, Biff Bash Bags etc and can also include a Soft Play section either as part of it, or as a separate area. Junior Adventure Play is generally a scaled down version of Main Adventure Play.

Budget Guide: Start from around £ 10,000.00 and can go up to a top end of £30,000.00.

Main Adventure Play is designed to cater for all ages and can include other areas such as a Soft Play, Car Track, Sports Court and more. Main structures are normally between 2 – 5 tiers depending on height and include a multitude of play features, routes, wow factors and interactive games.

The main attraction is generally the Slide Feature and designs are created to maximise the Wow factor and visibility on this. Structures, as with all our range, are designed with play value and repeat usage in mind.

Budget Guide: Start from around £20,000.00 with a generally industry rule of £ 10,000.00 for every 1,000 sq.ft of building.

What is my Budget?

Soft Play Budget: Average is around £2,000.00 - £5,000.00 but can go as high as £10,000.00 depending on size.

Junior Adventure Play: Start from around £10,000.00 and can go up to a top end of £30,000.00.

Main Adventure Play: Start from around £20,000.00 with a generally industry rule of £10,000.00 for every 1,000 sq.ft of building.

What size is my building / space?

As all play areas are bespoke we can design to any space or building quirk.

The average Soft Play Area is approximately 4m x 4m, however smaller and much larger provisions do exist and are just as successful.

For a stand alone facility anywhere between 2,000 and 20,000 sq. ft units have been utilised for play areas with the UK average currently at 6,000 sq.ft.

If you have any plans of your building / space please send them in to us and we can give you our expert opinion and an indication of size, price and capacity.

How much height do I have?

The height of your building will have a direct impact on how many tiers and the type of slide you can fit into your structure. In an ideal play area all levels would be 2m high to allow for easy adult access, however this is often not possible.

For ceiling heights under 2.5 – 3m you may be looking at a partial two tier structure so not all of the play area is in low heights. Smaller heights can be utilised in the design as crawl spaces and hidey holes etc to create a feature rather than a negative.

For ceiling heights around 3 - 4m a two tier system would be best.

Over 4 – 4.5m you would be able to fit 3 + tiers into the design.

We can maximise the space from pitched roofs and avoid trusses and beams to achieve higher systems if required.

What age group am I looking to cater for?

For younger users Soft Play Areas are ideal as the children can learn to play and explore in a fully padded safe area. These areas are all on one level and are open to allow for great supervision and access. Up to Four year olds is ideal for this type of provision, however larger Soft Play products can be incorporated to bring that up to Six years.

Junior Adventure Play is great for up to Six years and can also incorporate a Soft Play section. It offers a more adventurous element for this age bracket.

Main Adventure Play Areas cater for all age groups however we do find that interest starts to tail off around 10 years of age. Areas are segregated so that each age group is catered for with products designed specifically for every six months of a child’s life.

We hope this guide has helped however if you would like to discuss your options in more detail please contact our Harmony Team who is waiting and happy to help!