Rtc Safety Surfaces Limited

Over the past 160 years, Great Ormond Street Hospital has had many firsts.

It was the first hospital in the UK offering dedicated inpatient care to children. It pioneered the first heart and lung bypass machine. And in 2001 it was the only centre in the world that was able to replace heart valves, without heart surgery.

So, as you can see it is a pretty amazing place.

As such, we were honoured when we were asked to help the hospital reach another milestone: its first outdoor play area for patients and their families.

When it came for the playground design, Great Ormond Street Hospital worked with Disney to create a ‘Reef’ theme. The equipment was to include famous Disney characters the patients would recognise, whilst the surfacing was to include multiple shades of blue to mimic the sea and a compass with the renowned Micky Mouse silhouette.

Over the course of the installation, our team hand drew and installed each graphic to ensure it followed the design put forward from Disney. You can get a glimpse into the install process with this time-lapse video.

Playground surfacing Disney Reef Great Ormond Street Hospital
One challenge the project faced was the location. Not only was the project in central London, it was also on the roof terrace of one of the existing hospital buildings. To ensure minimum disruption to patients in nearby wards, our operations team kept in constant contact with everyone involved even using specialist equipment to ensure the work was carried out as quietly and quickly as possible.

The play area was officially opened in June by team members from Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Walt Disney Company, and Tess Daly.

After the playground was opened to patients, Sue whose daughter is a regular inpatient said “I was struck by looking at all the children in the reef because for a short moment they could forget the traumas that many have to go through whilst at GOSH. All the faces were smiling, eyes forgetting the pain for that moment and enjoying seeing Mickey and all his friends, the reef echoed with laughter and excitement – Magical. It is already a go-to place for all during their stay. A place full of fantasy to take children and their families away from the traumas and the reality of life they are often facing.

So to all the teams, thank you from a parent that saw it in reality for the first time yesterday but also saw the amazing effect it had. I will leave the last word to Holly she told everyone yesterday it was ‘totally awesome’!”

Working on behalf of Playdale, we were asked to install over 900m² of wet pour safety surfacing at depths varying between 20mm and 80mm.

Rather than a simple single lane roadway (which can be great for smaller areas) the school opted for a road with two lanes, two zebra crossing and a roundabout at the centre. By creating such a ‘busy’ road the children will get the chance to learn how traffic flows on roads and roadabouts, as well as how to use the crossing carefully and respectfully.

We also installed a blue river that meandered its way across the playground, including green lily pads and culminating in an ‘island’ – a great place for sitting and watching the world go by!

Rigby Hall School was keen to promote the schools key values; as such our team put their in-house training to the test and installed the play area with phrases such as “Mutual Respect,” “Individual Liberty” and “Valuing Every Achievement” written within the surfacing.

The project was based in Worcestershire, 135 miles away from our head office and was completed in twelve days, ready for the start of the new school term.

If you would like a play area like this, please contact us today for quick quotes and advice. Contact us here: http://www.rtcsafety.co.uk/contact-us/

If you have ever taken a look at our gallery, you will know we have installed lots of different types of graphics over the years. This month though, we were asked to create something a little bit different– we were asked to recreate the Queen Elizabeth Air Craft Carrier in wet pour safety surfacing for The Fleet Air Arm Museum, on behalf of Proludic.

We spent five days in Somerset installing over 150m² of wet pour in their new play area. As the museum is based near the busiest military air station in Europe, our team had a good chance of seeing military planes taking to the sky, as they carefully installed the wet pour surfacing.

We created a grey F35 Stealth Jet and also installed lines in white and red, within the black surface to mimic the design on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

All of our teams are trained in-house to install the highest quality graphics within safety surfacing, so if you have a project that requires special graphics, or would like to ideas for your playground, just get in touch and our team will be happy to help.

One of our twelve installation teams recently got the chance to visit the iconic Olympic Park, as we were asked by The Great Outdoor Gym Company to install the wet pour safety surfacing at the park’s new outdoor gym.

This was no ordinary outdoor gym however, as it is the UK’s first outdoor gym to be made from recycled aerosol cans. The gym was created using 2,500 used aerosol cans, donated by the public as part of a sustainability initiative by Right Guard, The Great Outdoor Gym Company and recycling company Terracycle.

As Right Guard was sponsoring the site our team was challenged to recreate the Right Guard logo, within the wet pour surfacing. The logo incorporated three separate colours, and it was highly important that our teams managed to lay the surfacing with the precise dimensions.

This was in addition to other graphics in green and blue that were designed to aid exercise and encourage free movement as well as the use of other items such as balls and kettlebells.

We were asked by Kompan to install three different types of surfacing within the same play area in Southampton. Enviro-pave was used to create the main pathway through the playground, whilst wet pour was used in the toddler area.

Wet pour and rubber mulch was then installed in the rest of the play area. The different colours within the safety surfacing was used to create a runway for a very special piece of play equipment; a bespoke Spitfire plane that was commissioned by the council and installed by Kompan along with other pieces of play equipment.

The bespoke piece was complimented by the wet pour graphics that included clouds, cogs and a roadway that was carefully installed over a raised play mound. The graphics were intended to spark the children’s imagination and encourage active play.

Our team spent a total of three weeks on site installing the surfaces and successfully finished in time for the playground’s grand opening.