There’s an undeniable link between children’s health and the built environment. Comfortable, engaging and therapeutic conditions are essential for well-being and recovery in pediatric settings. Playgrounds are a lesser-known element that enhances the hospital experience for patients, their families and even residents. What are the top playground solutions for children’s hospitals?
This guide lists the top five companies offering playground equipment and services specifically designed for pediatric settings, highlighting the essential features that make these play zones more than recreational spaces.
The Best Playground Innovations for Children’s Medical Centers
To compile this list of the top playground solutions for children’s hospitals, we considered factors like inventory variety and size, safety features, inclusive design, accessibility, durability, ease of maintenance and how well their installations promote physical and emotional healing for young patients.
The following five companies satisfy these criteria. They deliver exceptional products and solutions for pediatric hospital playgrounds by prioritizing innovation, quality and user experience.
1. Soft Play — Therapeutic Innovation Through Customized Play Environments
Beginning the list is Soft Play, an industry leader in developing therapeutic play environments specifically tailored for health care settings. With over 30 years of experience in the commercial playground sector, the industry giant has garnered recognition for its expertise in designing play solutions that meet hospital environments’ unique challenges.
Soft Play’s health care-specific design philosophy integrates therapeutic objectives directly into its playground solutions, prioritizing features that support physical therapy, occupational therapy and emotional well-being. Their modular solutions range from compact play panels for waiting areas to comprehensive indoor playgrounds for dedicated spaces, making them adaptable to various hospital layouts and space constraints. Custom theming capabilities mean clients can personalize their installations through branding or specific theme requirements to create cohesive healing environments that look and feel less clinical.
Soft Play prioritizes young people’s safety by meeting or exceeding all health care facility safety standards. All components use medical-grade materials with antimicrobial properties that withstand intensive cleaning protocols to support infection control. They withstand heavy use while being easy to clean and maintain.
The company is ADA-compliant — they devise truly inclusive play environments that accommodate mobility devices and support children of various abilities. Their health care division provides specialized consultation throughout the design and installation process, ensuring smooth integration with existing therapeutic programs.
Soft Play has implemented successful projects in leading children’s hospitals nationwide, including at Brent’s Place in Colorado and the Pacific Pediatrics, a branch of the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic in Oregon.
2. Landscape Structures — Outdoor Healing Gardens and Play Spaces
While many providers focus on indoor play areas, Landscape Structures specializes in extending the therapeutic landscape of children’s hospitals to the outdoors. They have been a leader in the playground industry for over four decades, stimulating recovery, healing, creativity and social interaction through play.
Landscape Structures combines play structures with therapeutic landscaping. Notably, they incorporate sensory-rich elements that make their playground installations ideal for children with medical needs, such as:
- Sound and touch fixtures to help kids express themselves and feel more at ease in a hospital.
- Biophilic design principles in the form of healing gardens facilitate a connection to nature. Research suggests that being outdoors accelerates healing and reduces stress — which is particularly beneficial in long-term care settings.
They craft their equipment from weather-resistant materials to address the unique challenges of exterior play spaces in health care environments. As part of their sustainability efforts, the company uses eco-friendly solutions to create environmentally responsible play spaces that align with green building goals.
Landscape Structures has mastered the technical expertise of urban development, creating safe play areas on hospital rooftops and terraces — as seen at The University of Missouri Children’s Hospital Therapy Center and Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Their designs advance inclusivity, ensuring that children with varying abilities can safely and comfortably engage in play activities.
3. AAA State of Play
AAA State of Play delivers playground equipment tailored to health care environments. Their approach centers on creating safe and stimulating play spaces that seamlessly integrate into hospital settings.
One of the company’s strengths is its wide range of products designed to engage children of various ages and abilities. They tailor their solutions to match specific health care facilities’ themes and requirements, ensuring every installation is functional and aesthetically aligned with the hospital’s environment.
AAA State of Play’s equipment complies with stringent safety standards, a critical factor in health care facilities where patient well-being is paramount. In addition to safety, the materials they build with can endure the heavy use typical in hospital settings while remaining easy to clean and maintain.
The combination of safety, customization and durability positions AAA State of Play as a reliable partner for health care administrators looking to enhance their facilities through engaging and secure playground solutions.
4. Adventure Playground Systems
Adventure Playground Systems brings an innovative and holistic approach to playground design in pediatric settings. Their philosophy revolves around developing play environments that promote physical activity, social interaction and mental stimulation. This holistic approach is particularly beneficial in hospitals where patients face physical challenges and emotional stress.
One standout feature of Adventure Playground Systems is their ability to customize playgrounds to match specific client designs and themes. The company crafts its solutions to fit health care facilities’ aesthetic and functional requirements — as a result, each installation feels unique and purpose-driven.
Adventure Playground Systems’ commitment to using high-quality, durable materials guarantees the playground equipment remains safe and hygienic over time — an essential consideration in medical settings.
Moreover, Adventure Playground Systems prioritizes inclusivity. Their accessible designs provide play spaces where every child, regardless of their physical limitations, can enjoy and benefit from the equipment. This focus enhances the patient experience and contributes to a more supportive and community-like atmosphere.
5. Lappset
Lappset is a global provider of a distinct blend of playground and exercise solutions aimed at promoting health and wellness in health care domains. Their products encourage physical activity through active play, which is an essential component of rehabilitation and long-term health.
Lappset emphasizes inclusive and accessible environments, using universal design principles to develop their playground and exercise systems. They go beyond mere recreation to deliver measurable benefits in physical rehabilitation and emotional well-being.
Internationally recognized for fostering environments that support social interaction and community building, Lappset constructs its playgrounds in a way that encourages interaction, which is particularly beneficial in pediatric hospitals where social isolation may be an issue. The robust and high-quality materials used in their designs ensure the equipment withstands the rigorous demands of play while remaining easy to maintain.
Comparative Analysis of Leading Playground Companies
This breakdown provides a side-by-side comparison of each company’s strengths.
| Provider | Soft Play | Landscape Structures | AAA State of Play | Adventure Playground Systems | Lappset |
| Specialization | Therapeutic play environments | Outdoor healing gardens and play spaces | Safe and engaging hospital playgrounds | Holistic play environments | Playgrounds with a focus on rehabilitation and wellness |
| Customization | High — modular and themed designs | High — sensory and biophilic elements | Moderate – tailored to facility themes | High — custom client-driven designs | High — universal design for inclusivity |
| Indoor options | Yes | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Outdoor options | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Digital integration | Some — interactive play panels are available. | Limited — prioritizes nature-based designs. | Limited — primarily physical play elements. | Some — sensory and interactive elements are available. | Some — tech-integrated fitness equipment. |
| Post-installation support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Benefits of Playgrounds in Pediatric Hospitals
Children’s hospital playgrounds may look like recreation areas, but they are much more. These nurturing spaces break up the monotony of treatment to bring about the following benefits.
1. Physical Rehabilitation and Motor Skill Development
For young patients recovering from injuries or undergoing treatment for chronic conditions, playgrounds support physical rehabilitation in non-clinical settings. Equipment designed to encourage movement — like climbing structures, swings and interactive panels — boosts coordination, muscle strength and mobility.
Children naturally push their limits during play, which makes them more likely to do movements they might resist in formal therapy sessions.
2. Emotional and Psychological Healing
Hospital stays are stressful, especially for children. Often, these periods trigger feelings that naturally accompany hospitalization, such as anxiety and loneliness. Since most young people associate playgrounds with fun and recreation, having one on-site is a welcome distraction from stressful medical procedures.
Through engaging, playful activities, children experience better moods thanks to decreased cortisol levels and improved emotional regulation. This anxiety reduction may translate to measurable clinical outcomes, including lower pain medication requirements and improved vitals. As a result, these play spaces help kids process their emotions in a comfortable and familiar environment.
3. Cognitive and Sensory Stimulation
Playgrounds designed with sensory elements, such as tactile surfaces, interactive games and auditory features, stimulate cognitive processes. Engaging with these features can improve problem-solving skills, enhance creativity and provide sensory relief — particularly for patients with developmental disorders.
By integrating thoughtfully designed play spaces, pediatric hospitals can create a more holistic healing environment that nurtures a child’s physical health and their emotional and social well-being.
4. Social Interaction and Community Building
Pediatric hospital play zones inspire community through social engagement. Children bond and build relationships when they connect with peers, including those who may face similar medical challenges. These interactions eliminate feelings of loneliness and improve well-being.
Hospital playgrounds that accommodate parents and siblings promote family bonding during stressful hospitalizations. They provide much-needed respite areas where families can interact outside clinical settings.
5. Developmental Continuity
Normalized childhood experiences are perhaps the most significant benefit of having playgrounds in health care settings. Play areas provide opportunities for social interaction, cognitive development and emotional expression — experiences that maintain childhood developmental trajectories as proposed by Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
6. Institutional Benefits
From an operational perspective, quality play spaces boost patient and family satisfaction scores. They provide valuable distraction during wait times, reducing perceived delays to improve the experience, which potentially influences hospital selection and return visits. Quality child-friendly institutions also attract specialized pediatric professionals, supporting staff recruitment and retention in competitive health care labor markets.
What to Look for When Choosing a Playground for a Children’s Hospital
When researching the best playground solutions for children’s hospitals, prioritize these elements to ensure the equipment provides therapeutic and recreational benefits.
- Safety: Children’s safety should always come first. Look for equipment designed to minimize injury risk, with soft surfaces, rounded edges and nontoxic materials.
- Accessibility: Choose playground solutions that are accessible to children with disabilities, giving everyone an excellent experience, regardless of their physical limitations.
- Therapeutic benefits: The playground should encourage therapeutic play, promoting cognitive, emotional and physical development. Look for features like interactive elements, sensory stimulation and calming areas.
- Durability and maintenance: Hospital playground equipment must be durable to handle frequent use and easy to clean to reduce the spread of germs.
- Customization: The ability to tailor the playground to suit the specific needs of the hospital and its young patients is critical.
Properly designed and implemented hospital playgrounds transform institutional medical environments into healing spaces that honor the fundamental needs of childhood while supporting clinical goals — making them essential components of pediatric health care facilities.
Find the Top Playground Solutions for Your Children’s Hospital
Playgrounds in children’s hospitals are more than a fun distraction. They provide essential spaces and tools for emotional healing, physical rehabilitation and well-being. By investing in high-quality, therapeutic playground solutions from reputable providers like Soft Play, you’re supporting children’s wellness while they receive treatment.
