To think soft play is old school and not eco or progressive

[sheparo]

We have the v v exciting opportunity to make a building that will house some sort of large play/event/task zones for children, that will have to meet the council's loan interest of 100k a year. The building is part of a city-wide facelift on being more green, community focused and cheerful and is the only focus on making money in this venture. The rest is building bridges, creating community hubs, cycle paths and green spaces (yay!).

Thing is, I want this space to be eco friendly and an opportunity for kids to try new things like barefoot trails, climbing and bouldering, maybe a small skate park, small library area, sensory room, running and soft area, maybe even a circus bit, a little indoor garden... sort of where kids can develop skills, talk to each other, learn things, run around but also have it as somewhere to chill and have a milkshake.

My (kind but elder, male, grown up kids yada yada) colleague says he wants soft play. His wife is a childminder and wants soft play. I really think soft play would cheapen and degrade everything this building is meant to stand for... but I agree we need to make money... AIBU to want to push for something different? Or is there something about soft play that I am being snobby about? (I have three kids btw, they adore soft play tbh... but, but... garish and loud and plastic and aircon! And can be rough and not exactly community...)

Am just wondering if I am being a snob and really, soft play is fine and am just over it, personally, when others would really love it.

TIA ladies, I await judgement... !

Near to where I live they have opened a small soft play all in white and grey. There is a cafe area for the adults. They only allow 10 children max at a time for a 1.5 hour session and you can order food and coffee. It is very calm, not all the bright colours and sensory overload as pp said. It's far less 'stuff' but a ki h more enjoyable experience for me and my children (age 3 and nearly 2).

Surely you are doing some surveys /focus groups etc ? I would imagine what would suit an area will vary widely depending on the catchment?

And does it need to be all one or the other? We have a climbing centre near us that is a mix of soft play and bouldering, it's really well designed

Have a look at little brum (think tank museum), it’s a small world sort of idea with little science bits and soft play built in. My kids (2&4) love it, but also there’s things for older kids too 😊 I think it sounds like a compromise between what you’re both looking at and it would be easy enough to tie in the eco side, and expand the soft play

Can't you do a mix. Soft play really is perfect for little ones and who is going to be using the building during term time - small kids not in education yet.

Your ideas are great but not so much money making or practical for day to day.

I agree with PPs that you need to do a consultation. Not just with parents but also people like children's occupational therapists and educational play experts.

I think you can do an eco indoor play area with good quality play equipment, wooden etc, and some things to encourage imaginative play, but have some climbing and slides etc, kids enjoy and arguably need that stuff.

I also agree with PPs that music is not necessary, I also think that things like natural light and comfortable seating areas (for the adults) can make a huge different to a place that people want to spend time in or not.

In addition to my point above about consultation - it also depends on what the point of the public investment is, which isn't clear to me but hopefully is to you. If this venture needs to make money to subsidize the rest of the project then you need to whatever will be most commercially successful, which is probably more likely to be the softplay (there's a reason that there's lots of them, and not many of the kind of thing you want). If the point of the investment is to provide something more 'worthy', that it's a cultural/community investment, then doing something like your idea, which might well not be commercially viable without the subsidy, is more appropriate. In that case it might be actively inappropriate to open a softplay if it would undercut local businesses because you have council money and they don't.

Just to say, am definitely doing lots of market research, with children of different ages, random sampling with questionnaires and unstructured interviews in town and at the site, in schools, nurseries and community organisations. And having a variety of activities for kids to engage in and we watch who goes to what and for how long. Then if they all say brightly coloured loud soft play that is what we will do, for sure! Am just trying to see if soft play is really still a thing. Seems it definitely is ;)

In Dubai there is a great place that has a soft play and adventure park combined. There are higher wooden climbing structures and ziplines plus soft play. It is all nature toned and not garish and it is incredibly CLEAN.
We were once at a place in London where my then 10month child uncovered a chicken drumstick in the ball pit......

We visited this place once (on a weekend away) and it was brilliant:
www.churchfarmstowbardolph.co.uk/activity/indoor-play-area/

But "actual woods" aren't always accessible.

For example, to access our local woods, you need to be able to drive, otherwise it's a 3 mile walk along an NSL road with no pavement or lighting - hardly ideal for children. And OP says she lives in a city, so there's every chance the local woods is 15 miles away.

Our local woods also has no toilet, no café, nowhere to change a baby or toddler, nowhere to warm up milk for a baby - it does't even have a bin!

An indoor play area is much more accessible - it's available year-round, it's safe, you're not restricted by daylight hours or good weather. It'll have a café, a toilet and a changing area and it'll be clean, so you don't come home caked in mud and soaking wet. It's also fully enclosed so children can run around without parents needing to worry as much.

Surely you must be able to see the appeal of safe, enclosed, clean indoor space for young children?

Yes! I wanted a massive slide from high up that twirls down for ages... or a zipwire or something up high that older kids and tourists might be attracted to as well as a soft play for younger, more regular visitors.

I've heard of little brum! thanks so much for references and links to help hone ideas.

The project is vast and this building is meant for indoor play for children, and needs to make 100k a year to fund the rest of the social, eco and communal uplift our city is getting. Is fantastic and we don't want to fuck it up :)

Have a look at this place for market research www.riversidehub.com/ The toddler play village is fab and could be made eco focused with e.g. a kitchen garden area, repair shop, recycling station (the Think Tank in Birmingham used to have a great recycling station on a conveyor belt but they recently replaced it). The soft play has a climbing wall too, and a really nice sensory room. I can send you photos if you'd like ideas.

Do you have a realistic understanding of how far £100,000 is going to go for play equipment. We recently built a very small skatepark for £60,000. Costs of play equipment have risen so much in the past year that there is no way we’d manage it now. The small (not full sized) MUGA we are installing is £70,000.

There is some great play equipment about, lots of recycled materials. Natural water play (maintenance costs a lot though). Wood is lovely but the lifespan of it is incredibly limited. We are building a very small fully inclusive play area at the moment and are looking at £50,000, just waiting on the quotes to come in.

Soft play is where I take my child when I don't particularly want to engage with them but don't want them sitting in front of a screen for the whole afternoon either.

Its merits are that it is soft, relatively safe, enclosed, DC is challenged physically and comes back exhausted and (at least at the one we go to) I can get a decent coffee and supervise from a distance. I usually dress DC in neon yellow or bright red so I can keep track of them in the frame without having to move from my table. It is not entirely risk free but generally I only intervene if DC is being silly or reckless around smaller children, strays into the baby zone or there are much larger kids being a PITA.

What you're describing sounds lovely but a bit more parent-intensive. I would definitely use something like this but more on a "Things to do WITH your children" basis than a "Trying to forget I have children" one (i.e. less frequently and more as a family trip out than a frequent wet weather/cba option).

Our soft play was more for the parents and childminders. The children had Amazing fun they moved and contorted themselves into many different body moves, climbing, jumping, hanging etc..
But I could sit and take a breather. Knowing they were safe

Eco , something beautiful is great but it was fhe easing of my mental load that was the key.
Helped me tap into some quiet time and patience!
Personally I could create something really beautiful with Amazon forests layer's, the canopy etc,then an artic area...

FYN - 100k is not the budget, is what it needs to make per annum, roughly. Am not involved in budgets, am a mixture of promotion, research and community engagement :)

My son is 3.5 and autistic he couldn't do any of those things you've listed except the sensory room which I wish there was more of. But soft play has taught him a lot about coordination and it allows him to be near other children but still find his own space.

So depends if you want to space to be inclusive of some kids that can't access those things

The other reason soft play makes money is that the staff/kids ratio is massive and thus cheap. The children are contained and safe and parents/carers don't have to actively supervise them.

Compare the staff wage bill for a soft play serving 400 kids a day versus a pond-dipping / climbing / ecology learning / gardening / library experience.

My free tip would be to put in a couple of those ride-on car machine...it might not fit particularly well with your eco brand but you'll manage to screw an extra few quid out of quite a lot of visiting parents that way (especially fathers ime). My DH always manages to come back a few £ poorer whenever he takes DC to the supermarket due to those bloody cars (and his inability to say no 🙄)!

Another thing - these places make a lot of money from birthday parties (well, they certainly charge a lot for them!) so you need to include a party area in the design, for party groups to gather and have their food and cake.

Please god no. There's a soft play full of these things and I really resent it when I've already paid a lot for entry and overpriced poor quality food and drink.

Thanks Bryce, yes we want it to be inclusive for sure. I haven't got into that part of it yet, am researching what kind of space it will be in general then can focus on how to make this eco and pleasant for people to come to, fun for ALL kids and to make some money.

Am just keen to make it interesting and tactile and... just different. There have been some fab ideas here, am so grateful.

Off to feed my children some vegan socks I crocheted earlier ;) Thanks all, I shall have a job on my hands filtering through all these ideas. Is fantastic to know that my ideas were considered too worthy; the last thing we want is to alienate the people who need this space for a break, to meet friends, or simply get out of the house.

Actually, the idea that its 'just' soft play could be a huge plus for anyone with anxiety - you know what its about and so it isn't demanding or stressful.

Just re-read this properly.

Am meeting a group who have kids with SEND this week and will talk with my work colleagues at school. Am getting more excited with this feedback, thank you!

Eldest just walked in having had the time of his life at... laser tag ;)

Be aware if you try and include too much, you can end up not doing anything very well.
Would a "small" library be used much? Depends how small.
A small skate park may be too small to be of any interest to any except the youngest children.

I agree. £100k is very little to do this. There needs to be some realism here.