Parks and Recreation

National Park and Recreation Month: Featured Installations

Happy National Park and Recreation Month! We’d like to extend a huge thank you to our clients working in Parks and Recreation departments for your continued work on making our communities beautiful, fun, and safe. To celebrate, we’re featuring four municipal aquatic facilities where we’ve installed Life Floor across the country. If you happen to live nearby one of these, be sure to visit when you can!

Tropics Indoor Waterpark + Bamboo Bay - Shoreview Community Center, Shoreview, MN

Tropics Indoor Waterpark + Bamboo Bay - Shoreview Community Center, Shoreview, MN
Tropics Indoor Waterpark + Bamboo Bay - Shoreview Community Center, Shoreview, MN
Tropics Indoor Waterpark + Bamboo Bay - Shoreview Community Center, Shoreview, MN
Tropics Indoor Waterpark + Bamboo Bay - Shoreview Community Center, Shoreview, MN

The city of Shoreview renovated the existing Indoor Tropics Waterpark pool deck in late 2018. They chose Life Floor in sandy shades and a natural Slate texture to reflect the tropical beachside theme of the park. Guests and staff immediately recognized the additional comfort and safety Life Floor provided. Shortly after, the city moved forward with the decision to add Life Floor to the locker rooms. “Adding Life Floor to the locker rooms was something a lot of people noticed right away: ‘Oh great, you got rid of the slippery floor!’” Buck noted once Life Floor had been installed.

The build-out for Bamboo Bay, the multi-level spray structure expansion, was completed a few months after in early 2019. The city again chose Life Floor to cover the entire surrounding deck of the structure and the nearby locker rooms. 

Pleasant Glade Pool Deck and Parr Park Splash Pad - Grapevine, TX

Pleasant Glade Pool Deck and Parr Park Splash Pad - Grapevine, TX
Pleasant Glade Pool Deck and Parr Park Splash Pad - Grapevine, TX
Pleasant Glade Pool Deck and Parr Park Splash Pad - Grapevine, TX
Pleasant Glade Pool Deck and Parr Park Splash Pad - Grapevine, TX
“We have really enjoyed Life Floor. It has definitely made our deck that used to be so hot much better to walk on. It’s great.”
— Hunter Hardeman, Aquatic Supervisor of Grapevine

The City of Grapevine, TX provides an impressive aquatic program to the surrounding community with both indoor and outdoor facilities to play, exercise, and compete. With an average summer temperature of 96 degrees, the city experiences extremely hot concrete decks that can hit 140 degrees in the afternoon. Grapevine chose Life Floor because of the tile’s unique ability to dissipate heat underfoot. Unlike concrete, Life Floor tiles do not absorb heat, which is why the tiles feel comfortable to walk on in the summer sun. The city also installed Life Floor in the locker room areas to help reduce slip and fall injuries.

Trailhead Park Splash Pad - Winter Haven, FL

Trailhead Park Splash Pad - Winter Haven, FL
Trailhead Park Splash Pad - Winter Haven, FL
Trailhead Park Splash Pad - Winter Haven, FL
Trailhead Park Splash Pad - Winter Haven, FL

The City of Winter Haven, FL built the splash pad at Trailhead Park in 2016. The city opened it originally with a concrete finish for the surface and they’ve resurfaced it about 3-4 times with different products. After experiencing some slip and fall incidents, they tried a rubberized paint with a sand-like substrate in it; however, injuries were still problematic. The committee at Winter Haven ultimately opted for Life Floor, pleased with the fact that Life Floor met all of the requirements they needed to solve while also being certified to NSF/ANSI Standard 50.

“Not only does it look awesome but it meets many criteria of fall and slip resistance and we’ve gotten nothing but great feedback from the product and that we did something to address our slip and fall issues.”
— Andy Palmer, City of Winter Haven Parks Planning and Strategic Initiatives Manager

Westfield Memorial Pool Complex - Westfield, NJ

Westfield Memorial Pool Complex - Westfield, NJ
Westfield Memorial Pool Complex - Westfield, NJ
Westfield Memorial Pool Complex - Westfield, NJ
“We haven’t had a single major incident of people getting hurt on Life Floor, and it’s worth the peace of mind that the kids are safe.”
— Heather Re, Aquatics Supervisor Westfield Memorial Pool

After 5 years of enjoying Life Floor, Westfield Memorial Pool decided to redesign their splash pad to create a centerpiece attraction at their aquatic facility. The city’s main objectives were to refresh the space as a way to drive membership sign-ups and to create a beautiful environment where families could share memories on social media. By collaborating with the Life Floor Studio team, the Westfield splash pad now features a vibrant, unique octopus design that guides kids through and around splash features adjacent to the facility’s zero-depth leisure pool. 

Interested in adding Life Floor’s safety surfacing to an aquatic facility at your park? Feel free to contact us!

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Designing Tropical Getaways in the North: Bamboo Bay

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The build-out for Bamboo Bay, the multi-level spray structure expansion, was completed a few months after in early 2019. The city again chose Life Floor to cover the entire surrounding deck of the structure and the nearby locker rooms. In a recent interview, Buck expressed that she couldn’t be more thrilled with Life Floor as a solution to safer walkways and more comfortable standing areas for kids and her staff.

National Parks and Rec Month: Project Spotlight

Happy National Parks and Recreation Month!
Municipal spaces, near and dear to our hearts, are something we love to explore and talk about. In previous blogs, we’ve discussed The 10 Minute Walk To a Park Initiative [x] and our work to standardize splash pad safety [x]. We’ve especially taken joy in sharing the public splash pads we’ve designed through the years: Bloomington, MN [x], Westfield, NY [x] Clarksville, TN [x].

This July we’re celebrating three municipal projects that embody the importance of Parks and Recreation.

A Fount of Possibilities

Society has an interesting history with the concept of public fountains. Depending on current technology and culture, fountains have been designed as drinking water dispensers for urban populations, markers of courtly love locked in cloisters, elaborate Persian floating gardens, and elaborate works of lasting art and architectural prowess.

10 Minute Walk To A Park

One of the great joys of living in Minnesota (Life Floor headquarters are located in Minneapolis, MN, which at the time of writing this, is a balmy -4F) is the emphasis on parks, green spaces and natural landscapes. We’re a land of 10,000 lakes, and just about every single one of our lakes has a park attached, usually with a playground, a well-maintained trail, and (our favorite) splash pads. As people who have grown up with beautiful parks, and who are raising our children to enjoy these parks, we cannot be more thankful that we live in a part of the country that treasures park and recreation programs.

Cedarcrest Part Two: Why Design Matters

Last week we discussed the Research and Development that went into the Cedarcrest Park splash pad this past summer. Life Floor makes splash pads safer, with non-abrasive slip resistance and impact cushioning, but when it comes to splash pad design, we've also found that something doesn’t have to spray water in order to be a feature.

Filtering Through Splash Pad Concerns

There are likely somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 splash pads in the U.S., a number that is growing by an estimated 5-10 percent per year. A few seasons ago, we wrote a blog about how to design a splash pad and the best ways to make sure your splash pad, splash deck, spray ground, aquatic play pad, rain deck, spray deck, spray pad, spray pool, and spray zone stands out above the crowd.

The Rotary Splash Pad

Life Floor was chosen for this splash pad for safety, design, and durability. While Great Southern Recreation encouraged the customers to consider a safety surface from the start, Rotary also wanted to include their logo in the splash pad, and they knew that paint applied to any surface was likely to wear away. With Life Floor, not only will this attraction be much safer than conventional splash pads, the design will also last for years.

Westfield Splash Pad

In the early months of 2014, the Town of Westfield asked MRC Rec and Life Floor to help them with an exciting challenge. They wanted to upgrade the splash pad at their Memorial Pool Complex, but they also wanted to preserve the existing floor design, which had been designed and chosen by members of the community.