History & Origin of Indoor Playground Equipment

But where did the notion of indoor playgrounds result from? How did indoor playground equipment develop or come to be? Let's take a look at the history of indoor playground equipment.

The very first indoor playground is most likely a whole lot older than you would expect. The initial recorded indoor playground could be traced back to a gymnasium in Germany in the 1920s, where ropes, bars, and ladders were setup for children to climb on.

Kids being kids, they loved crawling, climbing, and exploring and jumped directly in. The prosperity of this would lead to the idea spreading across Europe.

This trend was mostly a European idea before making its approach to the usa in the 1950s with all the opening in the Adventure Playground in California, known for its wooden structures and open-ended play.

However, the theory didn't catch on as fast as many thought it would.

But it really wasn't up until the 1980s that indoor playground equipment really took off, thanks in large part into a company called SoftPlay, founded by Bill Kitchen. SoftPlay was one of the first companies to create modular soft playground equipment, bringing their products to malls across America and popularizing the concept of indoor playgrounds.

Within the late 1990s, a whole new trend in indoor playgrounds emerged: soft play structures. This shift was largely influenced by a combination of safety concerns and advances in technology that allowed for the development of large, colorful, and dynamic soft play structures.

These playgrounds often feature different themed areas, from pirate ships to castles, with slides, ball pits, and climbing structures. The combination of safer spaces that were padded and made kids far less at risk of injury as well as the bright colors and imaginary themes made them incredibly favored by kids and parents alike.

Today, indoor playgrounds still evolve and offer new and exciting methods for kids to experience and explore inside a safe environment. Since malls are more uncommon in lots of places, as they are at-work daycare, the demand isn't quite as high as these had been.

Lots of the same structures or designs are actually used for "Sheltered Outdoor Play Spaces" where rubber padding takes the spot of gravel or sand with outdoor playgrounds that increasingly have these create underneath shaded areas to offer shelter from heat and sun.

These blurred lines could be the way ahead for "indoor" playground equipment, but there's no doubt it can consistently find its niche.

Today, indoor playground equipment is constantly evolve with advancements in safety and design, offering endless opportunities for imaginative play. So next time you practice your young ones to a indoor playground, look at the past and evolution that resulted in those colorful structures and slides.

Report this Page