In the third installment of the series, we had the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Post, a principal at Counsilman-Hunsaker. Kevin Post leads the operations division of the firm, and is also the former Aquatics Director at the University of Texas. “All of the facilities I worked at were designed by Counsilman-Hunsaker. As I went through my career, I knew I wanted to focus on aquatics, and so the transition was natural for me.”
Leaders in Aquatic Design Series: Aquatic Design Group
In the second installment of the series, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dennis Berkshire, President of Aquatic Design Group. For a bit of background, Aquatic Design Group has been designing in the aquatics industry since 1980, specializes in ”competition, recreation, leisure, therapy, ornamental and natural water features,” and has worked on projects across 35 states and 25 countries. [x]
Leaders in Aquatic Design Series: Aquatic Development Group
Last month we took a brief look at the history of water parks, in celebration of the water park season being right around the corner. Now that summer is (almost) in full swing, we wanted to look towards what the broader aquatics industry is doing today, and what we might see in the future. One of the best ways to get a barometric read over the entirety of the aquatics industry, we thought, was sitting down and talking with the major architectural firms who are helping shape the industry by creating dynamic, innovative and landmark designs for aquatic environments around the world.
Apples to Aggregate
While there are many lessons that can be learned from the Red Delicious, the lesson we’d like to focus on is when a product becomes the default for the wrong reasons. The best selling fruit should not, as The Atlantic put it, become “the largest compost-maker in the country.” [x] (My family used to go apple picking in the Hudson Valley every year. We never touched the things. Go for Empires or Honeycrisps. - Ed.)
National Water Safety Month
May is National Water Safety Month! This educational program is a joint effort between the World Waterpark Association, the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals, the American Red Cross, and the National Recreation & Park Association in order to educate the public on the best drowning prevention tactics.
Slide Pads are like Light Bulbs...
They’ve got a few different names: slide pads, water entry landing pads, safety pads, crash pads, and slide exit pads. We can probably agree that the cushion at the end of a slide is not the most exciting part of your park. In fact, slide pads are a lot like light bulbs: you only think about them when they stop working.
Water Parks: An Industry Committed to Fun and Safety
The U.S. has one of the largest and most concentrated water park markets in the world, with over 1,200 water parks and new parks introduced each year. We love water parks: the thrill of heart-stopping waterslides, the mini vacation of drifting down a lazy river, and the singular joy of watching our kids explore water playgrounds and splash pads. But as we know, water parks walk a very careful line of safety when offering guests a place to have fun and a place to cool down in the water.
Winning Solutions: A Brief History of the Kelly Ogle Memorial Safety Award
Despite our spring snow flurry, we’re excited about the water park season just around the corner. This will be our first season with the Kelly Ogle Memorial Safety Award under our belt and we wanted to take a minute to showcase some of the winners from previous years.
Splash Pads Need Safety Surfaces: Part 4
The safety revolution that transformed dry playgrounds is long overdue for splash pads. We believe that creating similar standards for splash pads will reduce injuries and provide a significant benefit to public health, thereby creating a safer future for aquatic recreation, for our families, and for our communities.
Splash Pads Need Safety Surfacing: Part 3
From the beginning, splash pads have often been built adjacent to, or even on top of, public pools and wading pools, and so they have traditionally maintained the hard concrete “floors” of these pools. However, the practice of treating splash pads as a literal extension of the pool category is both inaccurate and dangerous. Even if splash pads began in the pool and fountain space, they have developed beyond those categories and now require a different set of safety regulations.
Splash Pads Need Safety Surfacing: Part 2
Playgrounds and splash pads are used in remarkably similar ways: children climb, run, and jump as they interact with play features. The major difference between splash pads and dry playgrounds is the presence of water. In other words, splash pads are simply playgrounds + water. As a result, they share some similar safety concerns.
Splash Pads Need Safety Surfacing: Part 1
Leading the Way To Safer Play
It’s hard to overstate just how much winning this award means to us. You can see by the grins on the faces of the people who accepted the plaque on stage that we were thrilled to be recognized by the board for the work we have done over the past five years helping to keep guests at waterparks safer while they play.
Taking the Lead in Splash Pad Safety
Readers of this blog will likely remember that splash pad safety is something of an obsession around Life Floor. After years of attending industry trade shows, doing sales talks, and even participating in parks and rec town hall meetings, we’ve realized that safety regulation has severely lagged for splash pads.
Splash Pads: The Non-pools
Ultimately, splash pad safety standards should be determined not by superficial similarities to pools, but by considering how people actually use splash pads. Basically, kids treat splash pads as playgrounds. They walk, run, and jump on splash pads, they play tag on splash pads. The primary mode of movement around a splash pad is definitely not swimming, and the primary risk is a slip-and-fall injury, not drowning.
Thousands of Miles, Thousands of Tiles: A Year of Life Floor Manufacturing
Tiles Produced in Madison: 30,545
Last July set us off to a relatively modest start as just 12 tiles were sold off the line -- though there were numerous trials being run at the same time -- but the pace has picked up nicely as we sold more than 5,000 tiles produced at Falcon in June, 2016. Those 30,545 tiles translate to more than 60,000 linear feet or more than 200 football fields, and they’ve ended up all over the world. From the decks of Carnival cruise ships and waterparks in Dubai to the Florida Aquarium and a splash pad in Tennessee, Life Floor tiles have ended up in a huge variety of places.
Concrete: From a Dome In Rome to Your Home
Splash Pad Safety and Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning occurs on splash pads when there is simply too much water accumulating on the surface of the splash pad. When this happens, children (and adults) are no longer running on the ground, they're running on water. And just as a puddle can cause a car to hydroplane, this water can get between your feet and the ground and send you flying.
Against The Infernal Scourge of Aerosol Sunscreen
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.