5 Reasons Why Aquatic Facilities Choose Life Floor’s Predefined Themes and Patterns

While Life Floor can be used to create virtually any pattern or design on a flooring surface, we’ve created a catalog of Themes and Patterns as a starting point for customers looking for design inspiration. These options can match or complement a facility’s overall look while also providing the standard benefits that come with any Life Floor installation. Pairing the safety, comfort, and durability of our tiles with these aesthetically interesting designs has added play value and theming to aquatic facilities across the country and around the world. Here are some of the top reasons why customers have chosen to explore our Themes or Patterns for their projects!    

Multi-Color Designs

All of our Themes, or color palettes, are designed with three or more colors to optimize how Life Floor installations look over time. Our reason for favoring a multi-colored design approach is that monochromatic surfaces, much like single-color carpets, show regular wear or debris much more quickly. Since many of our projects are located outdoors where it’s not uncommon for occasional leaves, twigs, dirt, or grass to make their way onto splash pads, we’ve found that breaking up the field of color makes these surfaces look best for an extended period of time. As an added benefit, installations that use Life Floor Themes often enliven and complement surrounding parks and aquatic spaces with a visually interesting palette and design.

High Tide Theme and 301 Pattern at Synderville Basin Rec Center - Park City, UT

Considerable Cost Savings 

Our Themes showcase combinations of some of our most popular colors. Customers looking to add safety and design often opt to use these color families as starting points for their designs. 

High Tide: Ocean, Bluebird, Aviator [Note: Updated in 2021. See Update Here]

Montauk: Mojave, Gobi, Sandstone

Boulder: Boulevard, River Rock, Foghorn

Since Life Floor is manufactured as standard 24”x24” tiles, our Square Patterns (301, 401, 501) offer the greatest cost savings by maximizing the full use of the material. Installation time is lowest for these options as well. Our Triangle (302, 402, 502) and Rectangle (305, 405, 505) Patterns offer a combination of full and half tiles, providing an efficient use of material that minimizes waste. Installation time is slightly longer since these Patterns are a bit more complex; however, many of our budget-conscious customers still opt for these designs given the added visual interest they provide. 

Square Pattern (401)

Triangle Pattern (302)

Rectangle Pattern (505)

Overall, we’ve found that when municipalities are interested in adding a safety solution to their aquatic facilities or want to upgrade to meet the NSF/ANSI 50 standard for aquatic surfacing, they most commonly opt for the Theme and Pattern options described above. These designs provide all of the benefits of Life Floor at the best prices. 

Reduced Time to Receive a Quote 

Because our Themes and Patterns are pre-established, creating a rendering that fits within the boundaries of a specific project area is a fairly quick process. When compared to the time required to create fully custom designs, this approach fast-tracks the quoting process for customers looking to receive budgetary numbers in a shorter amount of time.

301 Pattern in tan tones (similar to Montauk Theme) at Shoreview Community Center - Shoreview, MN

Design Options that Eliminate the Guesswork 

For customers looking for a basic surfacing solution or who don’t have a specific design in mind, our pre-set Themes and Patterns have been created based on established best practices and provide a variety of looks to accommodate a range of facilities. These designs feature sets of colors that are proven to work well together and layouts that have been historically favored by our customers over time. Having the ability to pick and choose from this catalog of options eliminates most guesswork for many of our customers, especially those that are primarily focused on providing a safety solution at their facilities. 

Boulder Theme in rectangles at Pleasant Glade Pool & Locker Rooms - Grapevine, TX

An Affordable Starting Point for Custom Options

Many of our customers have asked for designs that begin with a Theme and/or Pattern, but are modified in some way to better suit their specific facility’s needs. For instance, some might swap out a color or two from a Theme to shift the color palette in a slightly different direction. Others might choose a preset Pattern, but pair it with a completely custom color palette. Some customers have opted to add inlays, like the ones shown below, to contribute to the play value and theming of their facilities. We’ve also found that some people go with an affordable Theme and Pattern to better balance the cost of a project that requires the addition of a specialty logo or play feature in the surface design. Anything can be customized as needed and our Themes and Patterns serve as a perfect starting point for the conversation! 

High Tide Theme and 302 Pattern with fish inlays at Cootamundra Splash Park - Cootamundra, Australia

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Interested in specifying Life Floor on your next project? Check out our standard Themes and Patterns and reach out to us if you’d like to explore a custom design or to get started on your project. Our design services are complementary right now, so we’re happy to help meet the needs of your facility however we can. Thank you for considering Life Floor!

Including Play Elements in Splash Pad Surface Design

Splash pads have become a welcome addition to many communities, water parks, cruise ships, and resorts since they provide water play for guests of all ages. Typically, the main attractions of these areas have been spray features. Some splash pads also incorporate slides and multi-level play structures - essentially playgrounds with water added to them. While these elements offer many different ways to play on splash pads, these facilities become even more exciting when they offer an engaging flooring design. By adding a design or pattern to the surface of a splash pad, not only does the feature look better overall, but it also provides children with the opportunity to play and engage in more diverse ways. 

A simple way of designing the surface of a splash pad is to make it thematic. This allows the floor to match the look and feel of the features on site and become part of the attraction. For instance, a splash pad with aquatic or sea creature spray features could be designed with colors that mimic the ocean or the beach. To expand on this idea, sea creature shapes embedded throughout the floor can further enhance theming. Facilities can even use these sea creatures for search and find activities. They could invite guests to find all of the seahorses or count the number of starfish, for instance. 

Splash pads can also enhance guest experience by including games in the surface design. Hopscotch boards, four square configurations, and Twister-like layouts can all be used to add extra activities to the aquatic play area. Giant mazes could also engage guests in new ways. These flooring features can add play value to a surface that may have otherwise been left blank. 

Other designs can encourage guests to follow certain paths or hop across certain features. For instance, small lily pad inlays could encourage children to leapfrog across a “pond.” Likewise, winding paths could lead guests through and around spray features. A treasure hunt design could also provide a guided imaginative adventure. 

Splash pad flooring designs also have the potential to engage children with life-sized objects portrayed on the surface. True-to-life inlays of whales or dolphins can be designed into the splash pad as a fun, educational element. Flat shapes of surfboards or boats can encourage children to pretend that they’re exploring the sea. 

Beyond all of these ideas for thematic elements and games, splash pads can encourage creative free play with simple geometric designs. For a splash pad using a variety of colors, children can invent games out of stepping on tiles of certain colors. A similar idea can be applied to a splash pad that features different tile shapes. Concentric circles or bands of color also inspire engagement in new ways.

All of the designs shown above have been created using Life Floor tiles, which can be customized to any shape or size. Pairing an engaging surface design with our slip-resistant and cushioned tiles has the potential to enhance a simple splash pad with both safety and elements of fun — increasing play value and overall appeal. 

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Have a unique idea you’d like to discuss with our team? Contact us at solutions@lifefloor.com. We’d love to help make it a reality!

The Importance of Free Play in Aquatic Environments

Childhood is a time of limitless imagination, boundless creativity, and wild invention. It’s the one time in life when exploration is encouraged freely without the weight of daily responsibilities other than formal learning and helping with chores. The freedom of being young displays itself in many ways, one of which is free play. 

Free play is critical to a child’s development. It enables them to problem solve, think critically, develop stories, and innovate. It can be seen in activities such as building Lego sets, playing house, creating structures and gaining achievements in video games like Minecraft, strategy forming in board games, and simply running through backyards envisioning new worlds. One method of free play continues to evolve as children explore aquatic environments, such as splash pads. 

Children play at Lopesan’s Costa Bavaro Resort, Dominican Republic.

An octopus tentacle leads guests through a spray feature at Westfield Memorial Pool, NJ.

Historically, splash pads have included spray features that inspire thoughts of running under mountainous waterfalls, becoming pirates on a treasure-hunting adventure, or riding gigantic animals through vast seas. Far too often, these features have laid upon a blank canvas of abrasive concrete beckoning for inspiration. Covering this blank canvas with a specific flooring design is one way to further encourage free play. For example, a pirate-themed splash pad could round out the experience for children with an “x marks the spot,” different clues on the island to give more context, and a beach theme with blues symbolizing the water, tans symbolizing the shore, and aquatic creatures sprinkled throughout. It could even include hopscotch inlays to encourage children to jump from shape to shape to get across a certain section of the surface. This concept of adding theming to the flooring design can also help with zoning. For instance, a facility could denote a more adventurous zone with darker blues creating the “high seas” or a calmer zone with tans to portray a peaceful sand-colored beach. 

Before: Disintegrating Pour-In-Place at Wyndham Bonnet Creek, FL

After: Life Floor’s Pirate Theme at Wyndham Bonnet Creek, FL

Alternatively, surfaces can display a more simplistic, geometric pattern to encourage a different kind of free play. For example, “the floor is lava” is a common game for children to play by jumping from color to color or chasing each other around by only touching certain patterns. These activities could augment the free play made available by the water features they encounter as they run around. 

Children play on the hexagon surface at Parr Park, Grapevine, TX.

It should be noted that free play is only as free as children feel while engaging with the aquatic environment. Do they feel like they can tumble to the ground without fear of a bruised knee? Do they think they can jump around without losing their footing and slipping? Are they certain in their games that the only thrill is that of excitement and not of fear of injury? 

Life Floor strongly believes that aquatic surfaces should lessen and, if possible, eliminate fear of major injury. It’s natural to get a couple bruises playing; however, if injuries halt play then something needs to change. Our company was founded on the idea that play shouldn’t be painful. Scrapes, cuts, and concussions shouldn’t be a common occurrence on splash pads and pool decks, especially when young children could be getting their initial introductions to aquatic free play. That’s why a central tenet of our brand is safety. Our product provides safer surfaces with cushioning, impact absorption, and slip resistance, allowing kids to play freely as they were meant to play: without fear. 

For more information on the benefits of free play, please visit https://wetheparents.org/importance-of-free-play

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If you would like to discover ways you can transform the flooring at your aquatic facility, please send us a message at solutions@lifefloor.com.