 Welcome and good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to have Aina here with us today. Aina has a company in Denmark called Nordic Playground Institute. We have been touring a little bit yesterday and today in Istanbul with him to understand the level of safety of playgrounds in Istanbul. But Aina is also here to talk about safety and play, not only safety, right. So we are, Aina is very interested in figuring out how we can have safe play and that's also why we want to have this discussion with you here today this afternoon. But I would leave the floor to Aina. Okay, yeah so Aina is here is a I think fourth or fifth speaker within the Istanbul 95 talks. We have had several other speakers kind of exploring with us what it means to have cities that are safe for children to grow up in. And of course it's the city itself but it's also a playground. So today we are more focused on the playgrounds, other talks have been more about the city and it's accessible for children. So there was one more request. Hi Greg, Aina requested that I kind of ask him questions along we go along the presentation. So I will be because the whole we had five days with him in Copenhagen in February where we went through the 1176 the standards. So which is a 250 page document and we won't go through the whole 250 pages here but kind of trying to figure out what would be relevant for designers to know and what is interesting for parks and gardens teams within municipalities to know. So I'll be kind of guiding the conversation a little bit through questions. So here we go. We're not turning this on are we? Oh we are. Yeah okay that's me. My name is Einar. I was born in Iceland. I grew up on the Faroe Islands. Anyone knows where the Faroe Islands are? 18 itty bitty islands in the Atlantic? Anyone? No one? Great. They threw off all the seasick vikings on the way to Iceland. So a lot of seasick vikings in the Faroe Islands. I was seven years in the army so when I speak about children falling and breaking arms and legs that's why. I'm the CEO of the Nordic Playground Institute in Denmark. We do product certification for the playground industry but also parkour and multi sports and skating ramps and activity areas and fitness outdoor fitness and we do inspections of those as well and we do training of new inspectors but our entire philosophy into the playground safety area if you can call it that is we want the development of children's motor skills first. That's our first concern. After that we think about safety because today the European standards have been in effect since 1998 so they've been around we know what they're there we know what's in them so motor skills development first and then regular safety okay and when we go along remember this is not rocket science and it's not brain surgery okay this is logic put on the paper children's motor skills development often occurs on the cost of a broken leg or a broken arm I translate that into it's okay for children to fall break both legs both arms a nose and lose all their teeth you know why because it doesn't kill them so it's fine so when we talk about playground safety we're not talking about no broken bones no broken arms no splinters we're talking about death and serious bodily harm and injury okay it's okay to fall and this is the opening paragraph of the code this is the introduction to the European standard okay so our responsibility is not to remove all risk it's to manage the risk to be able to ensure some sort of motor skills development especially in the young children because all of the studies show that if we challenge children from the age of one until the age of six or seven that will have a tremendous effect on how active they will be growing up and how active they will be as adults plus children's basic motor skills can be trained and can be developed from an early age which is why we should never ever carry our babies or the babies we can carry we care we shouldn't carry our toddlers if they can walk let them walk nothing happens if they fall yeah they will cry boo-hoo then we pick them up and let them walk until they fall and then they pick themselves up etc etc okay the biggest problem for toddlers today children from one to three is that they can't walk across a floor unless it's totally clean and even they don't lift their feet they have no feet to eye coordination at all because they get carried from the car into the kindergarten they get carried from the front door of the kindergarten into the onto the floor where they play at 10 o'clock they get carried onto a chair where they eat and then they get carried you're following me right yeah no carrying of the of the toddlers yeah plus to deny access as a safety measure is problematic so we have to let them on to the playgrounds we have to let them on the equipment which is why the standard today differentiates between easily accessible equipment and not easily accessible and we'll be showing you some pictures where you think yeah that's not easy easily accessible but they're two different things okay plus risk-taking is an essential element in all play and is meant to help children handle risks in a controlled environment that is our responsibility as adults not as playground designers or installers or manufacturers as adults how many mothers have you seen standing behind their children while they're climbing somewhere going like this or or fathers trying to help their boys up a tree or somewhere let them climb let them fall they'll be fine if everything was so dangerous all of you would be dead okay so I don't know how this works that one talking about being challenged he doesn't stop that is not wrong a broken arm is better than a broken spirit does that look dangerous playing in the woods how many of you grew up with woods I mean with trees around how many of you grew up in the city why aren't all of you dead if everything so dangerous okay moving on to I guess we're gonna do kind of a conversation around standard equipment and things that are non-standard and see can we design actually because here's one of the challenges is that the producers have a part-time taking design challenges on so when you're a designer it becomes a difficult thing to design something that's not standard maybe there's nothing wrong with that but I think some of the learning from you I know is for this room is that things could look like that and they conform to safety requirements but then things can look different as well both are safe which one is more challenging which one gives small children more or children in general more motor skills challenges and development definitely not that one so you can as a designer you can design whatever you want do that first do the challenging of children first then think about safety later just do the safety issue before you sell it and install it so the the difference between that one and this one is they're both safe they're both fine they can both be certified but one is more challenging than the other and I can guarantee you one is also more expensive than the other a little bit more expensive yeah at least a little bit more expensive if you take this playground put it in a park somewhere ask ten children if that one is dangerous yes or no nine out of ten will say yes it is I would say that it isn't because the difference between easily accessible and not easily accessible is that if it's easily accessible we have access for children under the age of three and there are some ways that we can make equipment easily accessible if we have a ramp starting from the ground going up with an inclination under 38 degrees then it's easily accessible if we have stairs like these it's easily accessible if we have a ladder where the lowest step is lower than 40 centimeters off the ground then it's easily accessible or if the lowest platform they can reach is lower than 60 because then they can put their body on top and then pull themselves in okay any questions so far we're gonna be here for the next eight hours so you might as well start okay so this looks dangerous but isn't that's a normal slide certified fine wonderful approved safe until it's been on the playground for a couple of years then the gaps open this is the testing probe of a child's finger finger entrapments are not allowed where they are the object of a forced movement so on a swing or slide or carousel or cableways that's the toggle test the strangulation also certified nice slide this one certified wonderful nice beautiful stainless steel maintenance free if a small child slides off here and goes into the sand they will hit their head on on the slide because the distance from the top of the slide here down to the sand is too great so this is an installment issue even though the slides find the slide certified in everything the installment people made a mistake it's too high off the ground okay and over here this is an old slide way too steep they go flying off here like really flying can children perceive these what no because it's a it's a yellow and bright or orange or red slide yay looks safe but they're not and the other one looked dangerous but was safe so they can't they can't see that in advance so they can't do their own risk assessment before they start using the equipment okay that's our responsibility that's what we need to do and there we have the toggle test again in a playhouse also good woodwork except for the last beam put on top of the roof because children climb the roofs that's what they do we have grown-ups designing playgrounds we have grown up designing equipment a grown-up sits at his desk designs a piece of equipment and thinks the children are going to use it like this this or this then we put it in a park let a hundred kids use it and they find 11 more ways to use it we know they climb that the roofs of the playhouses which is why we are required as inspectors by the European standards to toggle test all the roofs and the end of the roof as well okay so once again here we are not nervous about the child falling from the roof we don't care that he can fall why don't we care because they won't kill them but that will kill them but they're the second till no until Saturday the third to last death we had in Denmark was one of those toggle strangulations a three-year-old what happens he climbed on top of one of the playhouses and got stuck and the people looking out for them they just went inside to help some of the other kids and when they come back they couldn't find him and they started looking for him and found him 15 minutes later hanging on the back of the house it's ugly it's not pretty so but remember that's the worst-case scenario that's if they die which is why we rather break an arm than a spirit okay yeah it's just um can you show the it's just a chain with a with a button at the end and everywhere that they are the object of a forced movement we test with this one it's just a chain with a button at the end easy peasy 40 centimeters that's it because this is for and clothing entanglement for clothes yeah so they don't they don't get stuck it's mostly the hoodies actually no or the well if you if you if you if you ask some of the people taking care of children in Denmark if they have straps or leave or anything in there they're no no no no they're not allowed and yada yada but still a boy got hung even though he didn't have the he got hung in his he put the the flight suit what's it called it was a one piece in winter yeah jumpsuit yeah and he got stuck and the but it was closed up here and he got stuck that was it and they can't lift themselves up that's the problem but I'm not I'm not a safety fanatic I mean we have we have we have high-speed regular access to our emergency room because I have three kids so I'm not a fanatic safety wise plus these ones and that one the children can't see it that is the body going through a barrier where the head can't follow and we have the body probe here I will now show you the ugliest kid alive or dead this is the hips of a child this is the average hip on a zero to 14 year old in Europe this is based on empirical data okay this is the biggest head of a zero to 14 year old kid in Europe based on empirical data okay that's what that's what I told you this is the ugliest kid alive but if the body can pass and they can't support their weight on the other side and the head can't then what happens they get hung because they can't lift their own weight when they're small so this one can pass this one has to follow that whole is it's not a playground but maybe we can check this isn't doesn't pass but the steps are this can go between the steps and this one cannot follow actually we saw a ladder today designed for a slide yeah that had all kinds of head entrapment issues yeah okay in some ways it's really not about the big idea in the design and it's actually in these details that the code is a it gives really good rules on how to avoid accidents because you can design something that looks super challenging and it is challenging but it can also be super safe even though it's super challenging so the standard isn't that much of a of a hindrance for as or for the design view of it that's why I always tell people design your super challenging playground first and then do the safe one afterwards okay any questions well yeah because the standards the standard says that that materials should be well they're allowed to be flammable I mean they can burn but they're not allowed to have an explosive yeah combustion they're not allowed to to go and no okay I've the first time I heard about this was yesterday static electricity anyone heard about this you it's a regular problem in Istanbul seriously never ever heard about static electricity on playgrounds in in the world I'm a seriously I'm a Europe I'm a European certified inspector and I'm also American certified instructor I know all the rules in the world I've never ever and I'm in every single network that exists on the face of the planet I've never heard of static electricity ever that's our contribution to the Turkish contribution to the standard work but it if it is a problem it is something that should be addressed so no plastic slides please do fiber glass or stainless steel static electricity I'm also by the way I'm also a licensed electrician so I've never heard about static electricity that's awesome I have to go I have to go to Istanbul to learn something new that's fine here we have two different playgrounds two different means of access the one on the left is a what easily accessible why is the one on the left easily accessible because it has a ladder where the lowest step is lower than or the first step is lower than 40 centimeters off the ground so here we need to think about young children when they are on there what what do we need to worry about because it's easy accessible yeah as soon as we have a piece of equipment that is easily accessible as soon as we have that we have to consider the falling height because as soon as the falling height exceeds 60 centimeters we need something soft to fall on within 1 meter 50 and we need a barrier to make sure that they don't fall on the soft 1 meter 50 area we just used money on so we need we both need the impact attenuating surfacing plus a barrier above 60 on easy accessible above 60 on easily accessible equipment if we remove the first step we can go all the way up to two meters before we need a barrier but from one meter we need guardrail but all equipment if it's easily accessible or not needs impact attenuating surfacing mean it needs something soft to land on from 60 centimeters falling height and below 60 and below 60 they are allowed to fall on asphalt concrete and rocks okay because they don't they don't reach maximum falling speed below 60 but even though we have a piece of equipment with a falling height lower than 60 we still need to give them a room to fall in so they need one meter and 50 centimeters one and a half meter they need a falling space and they are not allowed to hit anything on the way down so they can fall and hit asphalt or concrete but they need the opportunity to fall all the way freely okay can you imagine if if you're standing somewhere in your feet lock and you start falling and then halfway down your head hits something one you hit your head boohoo but your body keeps falling then what happens to your neck your neck goes done lights out you're not going home we've seen it it's not a joke which is why even though it's low and doesn't it's not dangerous or anything we need to give them the opportunity to fall all the way without hitting anything on the way down okay so at least one and a half meter of falling space around everything the reason I go everything is because it's not everything a play house and a sandbox does not have a falling space because the intended play is inside the box or inside or around the house even though we toggle test the roof it's not intended for play on the roof but we know they go up there okay so sandboxes and playhouses do not generate a falling space so they can be put close to each other or a playhouse inside a big sandbox that's fine we didn't talk about the other image we can do this so we have easily accessible and the other one is not the other one is not easily accessible because there are no stairs there are no ladders and there's no ramp and the point of this mouth when we measured it in their workshop was 64 centimeters so this is not easily accessible even though kids are up there they're going inside the whale and outside the out through the blowhole yeah so this is not easily accessible and they will climb on the outside of this so we toggle test all of these rooms okay it's never perfect okay here we have the Russian bear but it's in Denmark so it could be a Danish bear but we don't have bears and there's also a dragon as you can see this one is unclimbable on the outside it's defined as unclimbable on the outside it is not easily accessible because the first step is above 40 centimeters off the ground so it is not easily accessible children are allowed to fall from three meters all the way down to the ground three meters can you imagine just falling backwards and landing on your shoulders what your lungs do they go try to imagine falling three meters and landing on your back your lungs go your lungs collapse but they're just kids they'll be fine even even the small kids or especially the small kids they are fine and the younger the kids the fewer broken bones because between the age of one to three they fall like a bag of potatoes they don't try to catch themselves they just fall like drunken sailors or I don't know like drunken men primarily so it's first when they are about four or five they start breaking arms and legs because they try to catch themselves because then they get scared small children have no fear they'll try anything once they'll jump down the stairs even though they have no idea how to land or how to do anything and then they'll tumble all the way down cry for two or three hours and then they're fine if I did that I'd kill myself probably so when they fall they rarely break anything when they're small this one however is way higher than three meters which is why it's closed and when you walk on the inside you go from one platform to another all the way around and the platforms are lower than 60 from each other so if we put a step one more step down here the entire bear would be easily accessible but because they removed the lowest step or the first step it is now not easy not easily accessible yeah so it targets older kids yeah above the age of three yeah yeah is it written in somewhere or it's just a rule between playing playground it's it's in the standard it's in the standard standard says easily accessible and not oh you're thinking about the three year and enough yeah for example is there any signature that no one can use this playground who is under three no no but we understand because of the first step yeah okay yeah yeah and that's the only reason in in America you have to put a sign up saying which age group this playground is for if if the three-year-old is actually a capable three-year-old yeah he'll be fine he'll be fine he can do it yeah but it gives enough time to caregivers adults to notice because he's he has to work more to get in than his older brother he was a put in then he's in but it gives the adults more time to intervene well yeah and it's it's I think it's primarily about the competencies and skill set of the kids trying because I would never ever say no to any of my kids even though I know all the rules I would never ever say no you cannot play up there because it's for older kids and it's not easily accessible our middle child has broken every single bone in his body except this one I think and maybe this one he's broken everything like both arms both legs ribs you name it it was so bad that the doctors at the hospital he came to started asking him questions about how much I drink and if I ever if I ever hit my wife and if I hit the kids that's what they're supposed to do in in Denmark and that was fine fine yeah and that's because that's because when he got born his older brother was three years old so when he learned to walk his older brother was four and his older brother could do all kinds of things and he wanted to do them as well for instance jumped down the stairs that did not go well broken arm two ribs baboo baboo and then we came back three weeks later on a trampoline somewhere yeah been there down that got the t-shirt and all the stamps from the hospital awesome so but you wouldn't say no you can't do it I will never ever say no he's an awesome he's a he's he's turning 14 on the 11th of May he's an awesome kid and there's almost nothing wrong with him well not not anymore than his fatherly image so that's why in the standard also says that denying access denying access as a mean of risk management is wrong translate that to English but we shouldn't say no just because we think that it's dangerous if they think they can manage let them and keep an eye on them if you think it's dangerous keep an eye on them don't lift them up don't help them let them do it themselves in Denmark we have a big issue about all the trees and the kindergartens and the and the preschool area and everything oh they can climb the trees yes they can so what I grew up in a country without trees so I'm fine but we let them climb the trees if they can let them yeah but then they can fall yes they can and so what it's not rocket science it's not brain surgery it's logic let them if if we want to have healthy if we want to have a healthy well functioning teenagers who don't walk into traffic because there's no barrier on the sidewalk we need to let them challenge themselves between the age of one and four yeah a toddler fall into the four meter water well yeah then the mother followed him she broke or all her all of her bones but the children was super fine so do you have a limit for this for the potato example is there a doctor in the house no doctor it depends on when they're there skeleton calcifies so it's it's earlier for for girls than it is for boys plus a boy can't distinguish between morally correct and morally incorrect and ethical and unethical before we're 23 to 25 because our frontal lobes aren't well it's just it's a fact because our frontal which is why young men are stupid because our frontal lobes haven't grown together which is our moral center so it depends but I would say between after four five maybe then they start yeah it becomes but even if it risk if it's risky it's fine no no no no no no yes but it's just yeah but the kid is the kids fine kid is super fine no one broken bones broken everywhere it happened in a park and the mommy wasn't a drunk sailor no no no he she was just following her so it can happen to anyone looks dangerous yeah especially in the dark in the dark there are lights up here and in the mouth they were talking about putting a smoke machine in it let's smoke them out of the years and out of the mouth I don't know if they did they did that yet not easily accessible but could easily been made easily accessible depends on the client what they want do we want small children to play on this playground yes or no or do we only want it for the older kids so it depends this is not a standardized piece of equipment there is nowhere in the European standard you can look up and find okay I want to build a Zombot how do I do that or I want to build a blue whale how do I do that doesn't exist the standards equipment are a house sandbox swings slides cableways carousels and sea sauce that's it oh and trampolines that's it those are the standard pieces of equipment that doesn't mean that's the only thing that we can build and design and you can build everything together in one as long as you know what's in the standard okay any questions so far yeah these bolts yeah that's because they are part of a combined play so every piece of equipment I told you before has to have a falling space of 150 centimeters except if the intended play is to jump from one to the other as a piece as a part of a balancing act or as a part of a we call it a Tarzan track in Denmark you can build close to each other but you have to make sure that even one of the small children can go all the way across then they are allowed to be inside each other's fault base if they are part of an intended play is there standard for this jumping space well I it's the same question every single time no there isn't we tried I'm in the I'm in the European Council for the safety of children and we tried several years ago to get a maximum distance from edge to edge and Germany wanted it to be 64 and a half centimeters and everybody said yay except for the Belgians and the French because the Germans came up with it so we couldn't we couldn't it's it's politics yeah it is politics so no we when when the designers call us we go keep it below 50 you'll be fine but there's nowhere in the standard that says that a kid can straddle this or jump but half 50 centimeters from edge to edge is maximum I think that's what we tell our clients because if it's longer and they try to straddle and then they flip guess what happens to the face and then they break a nose and teeth were fine yeah doing the week with you up in Denmark I think there was a several times they came up the notion of common sense yeah so I think yeah when you can't find the actual answer for what you're looking for use your common sense but I also try to explain to people my common sense isn't necessarily the same as your common sense or your common sense but use common sense that's why I always start these things with it's not brain surgery and it's not rocket science it's common sense it's logic okay any more questions no I must be really good at this then no okay we have been walking around driving around looking at some of your playgrounds within the city and one of the first or one of the most reoccurring deviations to the standard that I have seen are the surfacing materials or lack of how do I put this gently it's not enough is that fine yeah oh how many percent these many yeah okay but we saw four yeah we saw we saw four and and and was it in the Hobbit he said and you shall not pass yeah yeah no they would know they wouldn't not not not according to the standard but I mean usually when we come and inspect a playground for the first time it can be an old playground we find a lot of deviations a lot of faults a lot of mistakes and then we do a report and it's 80 pages 600 pictures and we write oh this is wrong and that is wrong and then when the customer gets it and they call us and do what am I gonna do and we go okay so how old is the playground well it was put here in 1986 okay how many deaths none okay so how many times has the ambulance been at your institution never okay so your playground is not more dangerous today than it was yesterday just because I told you it does not conform to the standard okay so we can we can have a playground that does not conform but it's still safe and we can have a playground that conforms but looks extremely not safe okay but in the case of Istanbul I think this issue I as far as I know please correct me if I'm wrong we do have the same code we have translated it into Turkish so this E and 1176 is translated that as TS 1176 and we have it so it's I think a little bit up to all of us to be interested in the content and also to demand from the clients that we work with that they be interested in the content and we have been walking around with the two municipalities today with multiple and Sarayaj and we looked at some of their playgrounds and some of them had serious problems like serious head entrapment problems and definitely the flooring wasn't the correct surfacing but they also don't know I mean we realized that especially for the flooring they know it's not adequate but they don't know what it means not to be adequate no so that if they don't know it's broken why should they fix it if you don't know that it's wrong you would never ever fix it I mean we had the same issue in also like they have one of the municipalities has an amazing network of actually stuff that goes and inspects not inspects but they look at the playgrounds every day yeah so they have about 150 playgrounds they have six people who go around and check the playgrounds every day more or less on a daily basis not if daily every other day so actually it's not that they don't have the manpower to inspect like to do this they just don't know so it's just a matter of not knowing and and that's I think the yeah it is a matter of training yeah and it's not a long training it's just a five-day or three-day training so this is what we are hoping to now work with the municipalities say okay let's organize this training for you let's get it over with it's not that complicated yeah I'll come back and the idea would be really to also from us on the designer side to own this knowledge and to I mean we had I don't know ours if you remember Algar was here last year on this time and I kept asking Algar so what's the safety how do you deal with the safety and he kept saying you know just read the freaking thing it's not that complicated just read this 1176 and it's only 250 some pages I mean yeah if you read it you'll get the gist of what's important and was not I mean some of it is not that important but all of the entrapments and all the falling heights and the surface demands they are important because it's it's more rare that children or the serious accidents occur on the equipment the most serious accidents happen when they land on the surface and the surface has nothing to do with broken arms or legs it is only to do with everything from here on and up actually from here on it's the brain and the skull that's it so when we test surfacing we don't care about arms or legs we do we do we have a we have a not an actual baby head but we have a head or we have a probe shaped like half a head that we drop 12 times to get a result and we can if we test the surface we can tell you which height this surface is approved for which falling height and the surfacing we've seen is is way too hard on the four playgrounds we've seen so but again if you don't know you're doing something wrong you can't fix it so it is a matter of training a matter of educating people okay questions for the surfacing want to more about surfacing maybe let's talk about the sand and the cobblestones and cobblestones of course the other stones the cobblestones and the sand and the not the cobblestones well the product well if you use sand I think you would have the same problem here as we have in Denmark cats love sand and dogs do too and the problem with that is that children also love sand and the combination cat dog two-year-old who puts everything in his mouth not a good combo but the the animal droppings mentioned in the standard are cat hair rabbit and fox those are the only ones because they their droppings have a parasite in them called toxoplasmosis which can give birth defects in pregnant women dogs dog droppings I was close dog droppings are just really really annoying yeah and they stink but cat droppings hair and fox no go on the playground okay and if you use sand or pebble stones you call there pebble stones yeah you need to have the correct thickness and you need to maintain your gravel or your sand which means you have to rake through it once in a while to loosen it up because when when they walk or run in it they will stomp it together it will get hard about four to five centimeters below the surface there will be a crust of about four centimeters which is too hard for the first kid to fall on all the other kids will be fine because the first kid will break it but it will also break their skull so you need to maintain if you use sand or gravel you need to maintain it keep it clean no glass no broken bottles or anything in the standard they mention they mention razor blades used needles so new needles are fine used needles and broken bottles you need to remove that every single day if you have gravel and sand it's it could be difficult to see it unless you rake it through when using the rubber material it's easily seen because it's on the surface and it's cleanable it's more expensive though way more expensive how many like what's the ratio of playgrounds in Denmark sand to epdm 70 sand 30 epdm but it's it's we're going the other way now yeah but the epdm industry is also pushing it the other way yeah the yeah yeah but they can prove that it's a good product so sand people are not working as I know the sand people they they don't care because if they don't sell their sand to the playgrounds they just sell it to a contractor somewhere they'll sell all their sand the all the sand they can or will but the rubber industry is also pushing for it plus the sales people Denmark they could sell horses or used cars as well because they can sell anything they want and they do it from a design point of view they never use the epdm as a safety issue use it as a design because you can get you can get your logo in it or if you one of your kids has a drawing we can put that in there and and they do the they're really good at this by the way some of them are even doing the so but they and of course from a maintenance issue as well they never use the safety issue as a selling point they do design and maintenance because it's maintenance free who doesn't want to maintenance free playground so we just put it in there and forget about it the next 30 40 years is that true 30 40 that does never happen because the the epdm if there's sand somewhere near there's a sandbox and there's epdm around they will put the sand out into the epdm we did a testing in in Denmark on a 11 year old epdm surface with sand it was a it was a walking path but with 60 millimeter epdm because there were also climbing structures and there were but there were sand on both sides and it felt really hard walking on it so we tested it before they cleaned it and then we tested it after and we can document improvement by cleaning it but they clean it with soap and they suck all the sand out and pressure wash and everything so it can be cleaned plus in the winter if it gets slippery you can salt it you put salt on it not a problem here I would imagine no no so questions about surfacing I want to tell you one thing first before we go on if you use rubber surfacing the surfacing system is in two parts there is a base layer and there is a top layer the top layer is always 15 millimeters and the top layer of 15 millimeters gives you zero centimeters of falling height okay you might as well use concrete and paint it as long as you paint it with a soft paint so if you use rubber you use a base layer first and then you put the epdm on top the base layer is usually made out of old tires or SBR rubber of some sorts and then you put the epdm on top the epdm is cosmetic that's it design that's the design part of it the impact attenuation is in the base layer the lowest part so if we have for instance a falling height of one and a half meter which is about here you need 45 millimeters of base layer and 15 millimeters of epdm to pass a test so 15 millimeters of epdm isn't enough what depending on the supply some of them will require 50 or 60 millimeters base depends on what kind of product it is but we're talking 50 60 millimeters for a falling height of a meter 50 and if we go all the way up to to a falling height of max three meters you'll need a hundred and thirty millimeter of epdm or only 15 millimeters of epdm and the rest of it should be the base layer so the rubber surfacing is in two parts the base layer which is the impact attenuation and then the design part the cosmetic on top but for example we have we're looking at that bear yeah and you can't fall from top of that where would we for example if we go back to that slide where would we need the thick epdm layer no we're around here here you can climb up that hole you can climb up there so here that you would need the thick layer and then out here at the end of the slide you need a thick layer not that thick though I mean there's a yeah there's a behind the drag or the dragon you can climb the dragon all the way on top of this his head that's three meters up by the way you'll need a thick layer all around so as designers also we can if we are aware of this thick layer that we need and that we need to insist on we also should be aware that we don't need to insist on that everywhere no so it's not the entire it's only well if we can do the we can do the calculation because if you have a play equipment with a falling height of up to 150 centimeters you need a falling space of 150 centimeters but if you go above 150 you measure your falling height and then you take two-thirds of that and you add 50 centimeters so impact attenuating surfacing and falling space will always be between 150 and 250 because you're not allowed to fall more than three meters and two thirds of three meters last time I was in school way back when was two meters plus 50 centimeters so the falling space will always be between 150 and 250 okay there is a slide that you saw yeah with the wood chips yes with the wood chips if it's if it's engineered wood chips because you can buy they're really expensive they make them the same way as everybody else but they're engineered if you use engineered wood chips you can go into table 4 in the standard and it will tell you if you put 10 centimeters plus 10 you have a falling height of 1 meter and if you put 20 centimeters plus 10 you have a falling height of 2 meters can anyone imagine the thickness of engineered wood chips from a falling height of 3 meters if we go 10 20 we go 30 so if you put engineered wood chips 30 centimeters plus 10 for displacement you will have a falling height of 3 meters and the base of it should be like a natural could be concrete could be concrete yeah could be asphalt because the the surfacing acts on its own and is tested by itself on a dead surface also about this rubber like loose rubber like they there is a product like these rubber chips rubbers yeah but they glue them together they glue them together yes they mix it with glue and then they put it out so it looks like wood chips and it looks like loose material basically what is it like EPDM then or exactly but it's but it's not well no yeah EPDM is fake because EPDM is industrially manufactured and SBR is is natural rubber but they're also they're vulcanized and but yeah the wood chips lookalikes is also a rubber material and they mix it with glue and at the base then you have to like do it does what you do in EPDM like you make this safe if you use the wood chips lookalike rubber that's only one system that's a one-part system but it's not as strong as the other one and EPDM doesn't burn but SBR rubber burns really really nice and it goes so we don't use it yeah yeah yeah you can use it that doesn't burn that fast but it burns really really well and if you use if you use 15 centimeters of the rubber wood chips you have a falling height of three meters and they are not as expensive as the other one but they're not as durable either and plus they're all black they paint them they mix them with paint so they look like wood chips but when the kids run around on it it tears the paint off so everything turns black plus the cheaper the EPDM the less color you get in it so it might look really beautiful on on day one but after two years in the Sun is all gray so the cheaper the material the lower the quality like everything else I can try yeah these are actual wood chips and if you go if you go to to the US you're only allowed to use EPDM or engineered wood chips if you use wood chips that are not certified certified as engineered they're just wood chips yeah our options for flooring you are mentioning for sand EPDM or SBR and wood chips and what else gravel pebble stones pebbles on yeah but only yeah but only only where there is risk of a fall yes grass is fine up till about a meter okay it has to be grass okay concrete is fine until 60 centimeters of falling height okay yeah you mean the asphalt and the stone as well under 60 centimeters yeah you are saying okay as long as it's even even yeah because they should be able to fall all the way the head shouldn't stop halfway okay thank you anyone no one not a one no no no no this is only slide 15 of 192 yeah so moving on to maintenance designing selling and installing and getting the mayor to open a playground is all fine wonderful beautiful but then we forget about it then we just leave it maintenance is the biggest part of the mistakes that we get in Europe or the accidents primarily it's the surfacing as you can see over here we get we get frost and snow and ice in Denmark so when this freezes it will be as hard as concrete if they fall from up here they will break their neck or break their skull so this is not okay so when it rains even if it rains heavily the water should be drained away everywhere on a playground as you can see here this this has been here for quite some time and it's rotting that's rotting and if if if the owner does his or her monthly or annually or some kind of regular inspection they would have seen this and that and this and this that's opened up here they would have seen that and there's the the first part we do when we build a playground is you should assign responsibility for the playground to someone person a is now in charge of making sure that we get it inspected and we get it maintained there you go good news we realize in Istanbul this is actually working it is it is because there's a formalized responsibility and there's a formalized chain of command in Istanbul we found out yesterday in one at least in one of them we didn't ask the other ones I mean yeah and they had they had 150 playgrounds and and I told them afterwards if I if I would have asked that question in in Denmark I look in the crowd and go so which one of you is in charge of all the playgrounds everybody would be going is not me user but they all went as you and as me so that works there's a formalized formally placed responsibility for the playgrounds in Istanbul or in that municipality and that works and then you need to put the playground into your planning of inspections and maintenance and cleaning and repairing and all of that because designing and selling and cutting the red ribbon yay but we're not done okay so maintenance big issue I started my first business in 2006 and I was all by myself until 2012 2012 I hired two engineers is any one of you an engineer architects I love working with architects engineers not so much so the first time I trained them for a week before we went out and then we spent three months working on on 600 different playgrounds they saw a lot of these pictures in my computer and they started talking about I wonder if I know has some sort of weird fetish because this is sand and those are cat droppings this was a huge problem in Denmark in the 2008 910 and I've no idea why is it's not anymore but those three or four years we had cat droppings everywhere in every single sandbox we saw I have a million pictures of cat droppings so no cat droppings plus if you use rubber as impact attenuation you don't have to check that for cat droppings or broken glass or anything but that does not mean we should not build sandboxes sense sandboxes are important sandboxes are a big part of small children's creative process so we need the sandboxes this is not under design or safety or anything this is under maintenance which means we need somebody to go and check these sandboxes regularly to make sure that they're clean we get we usually get the call somebody told me we need to exchange the sand in our sandboxes once a year not true when it's dirty change it clean it just do something yeah yeah we put nets nets with small masks in them not the big ones because the cats will just walk into them anyway yeah yeah we the most of the sandboxes get sold with a net but parents never put the nets on when they're done when their children are done they just leave and then they come back and it's full of cat droppings and they yell and they call the municipality and say you guys suck it's their fault they didn't put the net back on yet to put in the sand oh yeah we can put a lot of chemicals in the sand their poison is the children but they will keep the cats away no no no it doesn't work then Sen which is a Danish sand company that's really they're really good at making all kinds of sand products they tried they've invented some kind of sand that that you put between tiles outside in the sideway sidewalk that doesn't let weed grow in it they tried to put that in sandbox cats loved it they tried to do something else with it some chemical and rounding of it and the size in the shape of it cats really loved that one so I'd I have no idea yeah but you know I have a cat there's a product called cat away yeah my cat loves it yeah it's it's like it's like a drug to him so I don't know use a net use a lid but do the sandboxes I guarantee you my household is not a normal household I grew up on the Faroe Islands where were as a two-year-old I was told to go up play in the river or down beside the boats on the docks and my wife grew up in America where she got packed into cotton and plastic wrap and everything because everything was dangerous could you ever can you imagine what happened the first time one of my kids cut their finger she almost called an ambulance like yeah word word word this different yeah 23 years this Saturday so we must be doing something right this is the last slide is it no no no that is true yeah so are we this talks about not everything having to be heroic yeah yes but this looks to an adult like there's no play value there's nothing in it is no challenge no nothing this is actually quite challenging for small children and the play value is enormous because they can they can choose different routes around their different heights different distances between the different stones so it's actually very motor skills challenging for the kids and they love those plus every time you put in a new playground somebody will fall somebody will break something or sprain an ankle or do something because they need to figure out how does this playground work of you could do oh yeah go nuts yeah but then I take it away from you there's two more slides no no no no there's there's more more the translators tired of me she wants me to quit okay let's see if there's any questions in the meanwhile well yeah yeah yeah I grounds in general in Turkey yeah covers a lot of mishmash of colors yeah that would drive autistic kids crazy do you see that as I can say if the concern I mean is there a protocol no okay but you're right they would drive an autistic kid crazy and I've seen some of the playgrounds that would drive a OCD kid crazy as well but no there's no there's no color protocol except well if you go to Norway you're not allowed to have stainless steel anywhere that they can touch because in order it gets really cold not because it gets hot it gets cold they get stuck have you seen dumb and dumber where they go that under the Norwegian kids do that apparently so no stainless steel in Norway but no that's that that's the only country I know of that has restrictive was not a coloring but they have stainless steel no and plus in Norway you're not allowed to have rocks or concrete in your falling space even though you're below 60 and there we go this is about the falling height yeah so this is about a meter 50 meter 60 maybe high does anyone know what the falling height of that sphere is could be because falling heights are measured from the top most intended body support vertically to the surface below you can't measure vertically from the top of a sphere so if you have a sphere or you have an incline they will not fall they will tumble or slide so that sphere has no falling height at all and even though they put in e PDM rubber surfacing that's fine that's logic because we know they will fall but if they didn't put it in I couldn't from a standards point of view go and say you need impact attenuating surfacing because they don't there's no falling height from a sphere the same if you have a climbing wall that's totally vertical you have a falling height but if you tilt it and they climb on on this side no falling height small tricks small yeah common sense yeah use your because because common sense dictates that of course you put impact attenuating surfacing because if they fall they will get hurt but they'll be fine kids will be fine we grow up fine or most of you did what we have a few we have a yeah but yeah but yeah but if we there are a few angles mentioned in the standard the first one is 38 a ramp is an incline of 38 that's a ramp fine done away with that then the next part is pieces of equipment allowed inside the falling space I kept telling you nothing inside the falling space because we don't want them to hit anything the one thing allowed inside the falling space is pieces of the equipment with an inclination of more than 60 degrees because that will only give a slight touch on the way down so if you go below 60 you glide but above 60 it's more of a fall but they will slide or tumble but you the closer you get to 90 the closer you get to an actual fall so common sense again again but there's no angle because if you go to 90 it's a free fall and if you go to 89 it's not but yeah so we use we usually tell them go if you go below 60 you're fine so okay more questions there you go that one where's the other one that one this goes really well is it in a sleep mode they're there these stones are manufactured at a concrete production plant these are not same rules if we put them in a place where we expect kids to play with them they need to abide by the same rules okay so one is an artist that uses these rocks put them in place puts concrete or rubber or what what she wants wanted to use and the other one was a designer designed the the stones got them produced and put in place same rules okay so this one is also here to say it doesn't have to be that expensive either no can use your imagination any more questions this was the last slide so if we want to have a conversation we still have some time I understand as you just saw in Turkey the playgrounds which were like on public space yeah but we are designing a lot like in community like this gated communities yeah they are like they are like wanted as an attraction point for selling a house or a space so I think I don't know maybe next time at your visit yeah maybe you would be interested seeing some because about surfacing and about equipment a lot of debates are going on like this budget issue yeah so as far as you push as a designer that the safety rules and things but at the end it can come down to money and then it would be like okay what can happen the worst how do we deal with this my first question would be how much does a child cost anyone depends on the yeah it depends on if it's mine or yours or yeah you can take that to the people doing the budget if they want to save 30,000 lira or or something on the surfacing whose kid is gonna do the first drop then also it's not only the surfacing it's about the equipment also you know if you go for like a brand that is secure then it comes down to oh in Turkey we can manufacture this it's very easy they can do the replica and you can you can do whatever you want as long as you focus on motor skills development first and safety afterwards you don't have to buy the expensive brands just because they're sold in the billions around the world you can do your own or you can buy but remember the cheaper it is the lower the quality and the lower the safety issue I think it's important to start with the public sector and we I think I know is available any time I think that's what we got him to come here for the first time but it's not meant to be the last time but I think we need to get the standard to be taken seriously first at the public institution level and hopefully also try to figure out a system where independent inspection is a part of the process so we build it into our as designers our fees that there should be an independent inspection and it doesn't cost millions it's not so complicated to get the independent inspection once it gets I mean it's really not unaffordable so I think that's that's one thing that we could push for because the more we say it doesn't matter it needs to come from another authority that is independent and is following a document that the Turkish state also buys into we learn today also that the municipalities when they bid out drawings they need to demand this TS 1176 so we can also follow up if the producer really has that certificate or not I mean part of it is a learning process that we will all go through I think and it's just that it's it's actually for us as designers we find it found it completely liberating to know that it's it's not so complicated that you can do things and you can convince people that it's that you know it's safe especially the 60 centimeter rule because we are interested in young children so it's the it's the babies and the toddlers that they can fall from 60 centimeters is and you can you can design a lot I mean that's the interesting thing the one that you took photos of it's all kind of works from the 60 centimeter rule and that once you make something difficult to access then then it is also by code that you don't have to worry about the small children then you can be more free you can design more reason yeah more things that have more complexity to it and that's totally fine too I think it's it's good to know this document first us then get the municipalities to take it seriously and I think we will we will achieve some results with that so we're really looking forward to working and anyone who is interested who wants to get the training and so forth we hope to organize a training session with the municipality in the fall for them we will try to figure out the way way that the staff of course gets trained for free but if there's any designers here who want to be a part of that too I'm sure we were gonna get make sure that we can accommodate a couple people also so please be in touch with us if you want to go through the training we'll figure out how to organize it any more questions apart from our moral concerns what kind of legal concerns should we have for example did you go to court as an expert I'm an expert witness yes are there any designers who got imprisoned because of their mistakes no but one should be the first one right no and in in the in the European Union it's the owner's responsibility to make sure that they have the correct level of safety on all of their playgrounds if something happens well we had we had a 31 year old woman dies this Saturday because a swing set fell on her and broke her skull so she died instantly and it is the owner's responsibility even though it may have been installed incorrectly or been broken or sawn over vandalized or anything it's still the owner's responsibility it's always the owner even though I come and say everything is hunky-dory it is the owner's responsibility to make sure that everything is as it's supposed to be yeah which is not part of EU yeah Norway is not part of the EU but let's go into that story with the swing set what happened and who who has contributed to this issue at the end to the accident yeah my point of view the installer expert witness the installer what I haven't I haven't checked it yet I'm gonna check it tomorrow when I get a bike get back with the with the Danish police the swing set were put in place last September so and what did they do wrong well according to the media according to the media it wasn't it wasn't installed correctly because it was just put loose and then sand or gravel around it so it worked its way up when they were swinging according to the media I haven't I haven't inspected it yet I haven't seen it yeah do you consider those yeah I saw a little girl on one of those swings yesterday and she kept falling out of it and getting entangled in the in the because the seats are so wide and when they sit in it they go like this yeah and then they and then yeah and then the seat the seat tilts so they fall out what's wrong with a regular tire or a regular swing those swings are for they're not even for infants or not even for small children because they are huge you could get an you could get an average American in there okay yeah this tape definitely not end on the internet so what are the mistake of the designers you observe most the lack of falling space and the overlap of falling spaces that are that are not allowed to overlap so missing falling space too short distances and overlap that's yeah we've found a really good one but that that is the primary and and well today also we saw head entrapments in the tower yeah that's a design point because it was it was a cosmetic detail so it can go from too short falling space to head entrapment okay and one more question the word is bothering me about this balustrade issue when we are designing the playgrounds yeah you showed a picture to us the more a traditional one and the cylinder with their robot so in the in the cylinder one we didn't have the balustrade at all even on the 90 degree part where we can fall like this yeah so do you have or do we have any limits or any rules for that for example we don't have any balustrade at all in this one oh the barrier yeah barrier yes if it's easily accessible you need a full barrier from the falling height 60 centimeters and all the way up if it's not easily accessible you need a full barrier from 2 meters and up from 1 meter to 2 meters you need a guardrail unless it's a climbing structure and a climbing structure is defined by you need three points of contact to maneuver it so when able to move your entire weight on this structure you need three points of contact whereof this is true one of them should be a hand that's what it says this is not that high I'm 172 on a good day and I'm taller than he is so this isn't that high but from a design point of view what would a barrel look like with a barrier around it what would that be how would that look from a design point so yes it is a design problem for it is it is a design problem because we are we don't want to put anything like this no side of us but we are feeling like we should yeah you need you need a barrier on a platform a platform is designed as a raised or is defined as a raised surface where one or more can stand without holding on to anything so if you curve it you give it some inclination or something you move away from the platform definition yeah that's a barrel let's call it a barrel that's not a platform okay thank you so plus the you saw the blue whale earlier there are no barriers on top of the whale either it goes like this okay let's take one last question and then we will have some time we can ask questions I know we'll be here any any last questions okay thank you so much as always it was super liberating to know all this hopefully that took an hour and a half that was what it was supposed to do so we're on time again I know we'll be coming back probably around November we haven't really scheduled it yet I mean I'm I'm imagining we have to get them back because we need all this training at least at the municipal level and if there's any other persons companies that are interested so we can work towards how to organize that also let us know and we're happy to to figure this help figure this out and we can talk now okay thank you so much thank you I know