Ştiri Playtop

Unique Floating Playground

A new public play facility that is unique to Amsterdam has just opened - it's on two barges in the Westerdok (Western Dock) part of the city.

The scheme, which has been designed by the architect Carve (http://www.carve.nl/) for the City of Amsterdam authority, sits between the boats and barges that house the residents of Westerdok. Aimed at six to 12 year olds, both play areas are covered in black Playtop Safer Surfacing and include multi-coloured Playtop Spheres.

Installed in just two days by Playtop's licensee for the Netherlands, the project had some real challenges. These included dealing with different deck heights and having to continuously adjust the thickness of the Playtop to allow for the variation in fall height. Another problem that had to be overcome was accessing the boats whilst the surrounding area was also being developed. Finally, to ensure adhesion to the surface, Van Vliet Harmelen used a full binder rather than primer to secure the base layer to the steel body of the boats.

Will Codrington, general manager of the scheme organisor, said: "Indoors and outdoors, playing in the city centre is an important focus of attention for us. The motto of the city is 'Space for children'. Westerdokseiland has the highest density of population in Amsterdam; there is too little space on land for all the desired play facilities. Hence the plan to put some on the water thereby allowing more children to play outside safely!"