Our highly individual play equipment and facilities are built to give maximum play enjoyment and a sense of adventure to children.

Children need to challenge themselves – and to prove themselves in various situations – in order to gather life experiences.

This serves to strengthen their self-confidence and also helps them to leave their comfort zone. Playfully-controlled risks and adventure are thus indispensible for children to develop with a positive “go-getting” attitude towards life.

We are frequently confronted by municipal representatives who fear being made liable and being tied up in courts for potential accidents at their playgrounds. These kinds of misconceptions often result in attempts to exclude all nature of risk and possibility of accident from the outset.

Research studies and tests have shown this to be the wrong approach. In fact, mobility and motor skills have declined in children over the past years and this actually leads to more accidents due to a lack of coordination. Good motor skills, a fine sense of balance as well as mobility and agility are sharply declining among children and adolescents.

This false approach leads to attempts to standardize climbing equipment more and more and eliminate any kind of risk.

A better approach would be to learn how to deal with risk in a playful way. Having to be attentive and being involved in exciting play raises the play value of a playground’s equipment.

A child’s attitude toward risk, courage and pride – but also failure, is shaped by his/her willingness to “keep trying until he/she succeeds”. We create the opportunity for children to help one another and to learn group dynamic behavior. Healthy competitive behavior among peers can be encouraged.

General safety requirements for play equipment and playgrounds are summarized in DIN EN 1176 part 1.  Since 2009, these guidelines are binding for the manufacturing of play equipment.  DIN EN 1177 was integrated into DIN EN 1176.

As part of the way in which we conduct our daily work, we see these norms as indispensible criteria in ensuring the safety of play equipment. This safety, however, should not become a testable end in itself.

We want precisely the safety that is necessary, though not that which is maximally possible. After all, the quality that we strive for, and the design of the equipment, should offer maximum fun at play. We don’t believe that the norms should restrict the fun that children could have – or that they are an obstacle to having good fun.

Thus, we discuss the equipment to be built with security experts in advance and sometimes also have a stability analysis prepared. Regular training measures for our personnel also ensure the high degree of know-how and problem-solving skills necessary to create customized, artistic playground equipment.

Generally we seek out local experts on playground equipment safety in Germany (or outside of Germany) and discuss our plans with the responsible official who will subsequently also carry out final testing and assume responsibility for the technical documentation.

All of the playgrounds and equipment published on our Internet site (as well as other playgrounds we created) comply with the current European norms and are safety certified.

We would be happy to respond to them. Please send your e-mail to spielraum - at - zimmerobst.de