SURFACING SPREADS IN SCANDINAVIA

Locations across Scandinavia are converting in their droves from loose fill play surfacing to wet-pour Playtop since the company opened a Scandinavian office earlier this year.

Tiger Hill

Tiger Hill

Klim Strand

In just four months Playtop has set up new licensees for its impact-absorbing play surfacing in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and has completed its first projects.

Scandinavian play areas have traditionally used loose fill surfacing such as sand and bark. However, since launching Playtop onto the market, the company has seen an unprecedented number of enquiries from organisations looking for an alternative.

One such organisation is the prestigious Klim Strand Camping in the north of Denmark. This eco-friendly camp site was looking for a colourful, flexible surface that it could use in a new 600 square metre indoor activity and climbing centre. Playtop appealed because of its colour combinations, its safety characteristics (with a critical fall height of 2 metres), its low maintenance and its environmental credentials.

The play area tells the story of the people of the bay of Jammerbugten, who in times of hardship deliberately beached passing ships by luring them to the shore. Once stranded, ‘beach thieves’ moved in stripping the ships of anything edible and useable. A climbing net represents the ship whilst different coloured Playtop has been used to create a landscape of dunes, water, islands and whales.

Jan Jepsen, the owner of Klim Strand Camping, believes the whole concept is completely new: “The play dome has been positively received by all of our customers. I think that we will see many more play areas like ours in the future, where the theme will be the key.”

Schools are also leading the way, with the first school playgrounds to use Playtop in Norway and Denmark already open. ‘Tiger Hill’ as it is known was created by architects for the Tjørnegårdsskolen school in Gentofte, Denmark. They wanted to create a challenging play area for all ages at the school. So a large play mound, rising to two metres at its highest, was created and covered in black and eggshell Playtop surfacing to resemble a tiger. 

“It became very clear that if the project was going to be a success, the hill should represent one of the key play areas in the school yard.” said Rasmus Laub Andersen from landscape architect Kragh & Berglund. “It is our belief that Tiger Hill as well as the rest of the play area will be used a lot, bringing joy to the school and its children. Playtop has fully lived up to our expectations in terms of design, shape and quality.”

Thomas Moller-Nielsen, Playtop’s international manager for Scandinavia, adds “The Scandinavians are very environmentally aware and it’s great that they now have an environmentally friendly product they can use.

“I also think that our success is very much based on the flexibility of the product – it can be used for many purposes. Safety is also a big issue…and municipalities love the design possibilities that Playtop offers together with the fact that it requires no maintenance.

“Playtop has been available in Iceland and Finland for several years. It’s great to see the level of interest that we’re now also getting from Scandinavia. It’s an exciting time for us.”

Playtop safer surfacing is manufactured from recycled commercial vehicle tyres produced by a sister company, Charles Lawrence International. In addition, Playtop has a global partnership with Nike, the sportswear company, which sees recycled sports shoes also used in its surfacing.  Every square metre of Playtop which incorporates Nike Grind contains rubber from approximately 20 pairs of trainers and one commercial vehicle tyre. Using rubber granulate from tyres and trainers in this way prevents it ending up in already overflowing landfill sites.