Custom Designed
Natural Wood
Playstructures

Where Our Responsibility Runs

Where Designed for Fun manages the safety surfacing, we take responsibility for the surfacing system's compliance too — with the ADA, ASTM and CPSC requirements that apply to it. An accessible route is only accessible if the surface under it performs, and a critical fall height rating means nothing unless the system installed beneath the deck actually delivers it.

Standards Are a Floor, Not a Design

A structure can satisfy every clause of F1487 and still be a poor playground. Nothing in the specification tells you where the tallest deck should sit relative to the afternoon sun, how sightlines work for a parent on a bench, or which age groups will actually share a space at three o'clock on a Tuesday. That comes from having built these before.

Safety During Construction

Playgrounds are rarely built on empty land. They go into occupied school campuses during term time, into parks that stay open, and onto Manhattan rooftops where a crane pick has to be scheduled around a working building. Site safety on our projects is directed by New York City Department of Buildings certified Site Safety Coordinators.

Designed by Certified Inspectors

Every member of our team is a Certified Playground Safety Inspector. The credential has been held and renewed across our team more than a dozen times over — CPSI requires recertification, so that figure reflects decades of staying current rather than a certificate on a wall.

Built to ASTM F1487

ASTM F1487 is the Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public Use. It governs use zones and fall heights, head and neck entrapment, partial-body entrapment, entanglement and protrusion limits, sharp edges, and the labelling, installation and maintenance information that ships with the equipment. Every PlayWood Plus structure is designed and built to meet it.

Accessibility Is a Count, Not a Gesture

The 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design set out play area requirements in Section 240 and Chapter 10. They are specific: an accessible route must reach the play area, a minimum number of ground-level play components must sit on that route, and where a structure has elevated components a proportion must be reachable by ramp or transfer system.

Three Age Groups, Designed Apart

We design for three, and we design them apart: infant and toddler; preschool, ages 2–5; and school age, ages 5–12. Equipment appropriate to one group is not appropriate to another, and mixing them is one of the most common failures on a public playground.

Safety in the Material Itself

Nothing harmful where children put their hands. Every structure is built from timber treated with MicroPro® MCA, which contains no arsenic.

Where Our Responsibility Runs

Where Designed for Fun manages the safety surfacing, we take responsibility for the surfacing system's compliance too — with the ADA, ASTM and CPSC requirements that apply to it. An accessible route is only accessible if the surface under it performs, and a critical fall height rating means nothing unless the system installed beneath the deck actually delivers it.

Standards Are a Floor, Not a Design

A structure can satisfy every clause of F1487 and still be a poor playground. Nothing in the specification tells you where the tallest deck should sit relative to the afternoon sun, how sightlines work for a parent on a bench, or which age groups will actually share a space at three o'clock on a Tuesday. That comes from having built these before.

Safety During Construction

Playgrounds are rarely built on empty land. They go into occupied school campuses during term time, into parks that stay open, and onto Manhattan rooftops where a crane pick has to be scheduled around a working building. Site safety on our projects is directed by New York City Department of Buildings certified Site Safety Coordinators.

Designed by Certified Inspectors

Every member of our team is a Certified Playground Safety Inspector. The credential has been held and renewed across our team more than a dozen times over — CPSI requires recertification, so that figure reflects decades of staying current rather than a certificate on a wall.

Built to ASTM F1487

ASTM F1487 is the Standard Consumer Safety Performance Specification for Playground Equipment for Public Use. It governs use zones and fall heights, head and neck entrapment, partial-body entrapment, entanglement and protrusion limits, sharp edges, and the labelling, installation and maintenance information that ships with the equipment. Every PlayWood Plus structure is designed and built to meet it.

Accessibility Is a Count, Not a Gesture

The 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design set out play area requirements in Section 240 and Chapter 10. They are specific: an accessible route must reach the play area, a minimum number of ground-level play components must sit on that route, and where a structure has elevated components a proportion must be reachable by ramp or transfer system.

Carbon Storage in Timber

As pine trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon in their trunks, branches, roots, and surrounding soils. When timber is converted into a durable structure, a portion of that carbon remains stored in the wood throughout the product's service life.

Selective Grading & Specialty Milling

Our material standards begin well beyond conventional structural grading. Every timber measuring 4×4 or smaller is specified clear on all four sides, while deck and roof boards are selected clear on three sides. This careful sorting places the cleanest faces where children see and touch them.

Near-Zero Residue Waste

Material removed during processing remains valuable. Bark may become landscaping material or boiler fuel, while chips, shavings, and sawdust can supply pulp, paper, composite products, pellets, or energy. USDA data show that 99% of the residues generated by primary Southern wood manufacturers were used for another product.

As Long as It Takes to Grow the Replacement

Southern yellow pine reaches sawtimber size in roughly 25 to 30 years. A PlayWood Plus structure carries 25 or more years of field service. Put simply, one of our playgrounds stands for about as long as it takes the forest to grow the timber that would replace it — and while it stands, the carbon that timber captured stays captured.

Southern Pine Forests

Pine-dominated forests stretch across the southeastern United States — from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas through Alabama, Mississippi, and beyond. Commercially classified together as Southern Pine or Southern Yellow Pine, these species share exceptional strength, relatively rapid growth, and the ability to regenerate through natural and managed forestry.

Carbon Storage in Timber

As pine trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon in their trunks, branches, roots, and surrounding soils. When timber is converted into a durable structure, a portion of that carbon remains stored in the wood throughout the product's service life.

Selective Grading & Specialty Milling

Our material standards begin well beyond conventional structural grading. Every timber measuring 4×4 or smaller is specified clear on all four sides, while deck and roof boards are selected clear on three sides. This careful sorting places the cleanest faces where children see and touch them.

Near-Zero Residue Waste

Material removed during processing remains valuable. Bark may become landscaping material or boiler fuel, while chips, shavings, and sawdust can supply pulp, paper, composite products, pellets, or energy. USDA data show that 99% of the residues generated by primary Southern wood manufacturers were used for another product.

As Long as It Takes to Grow the Replacement

Southern yellow pine reaches sawtimber size in roughly 25 to 30 years. A PlayWood Plus structure carries 25 or more years of field service. Put simply, one of our playgrounds stands for about as long as it takes the forest to grow the timber that would replace it — and while it stands, the carbon that timber captured stays captured.

Southern Pine Forests

Pine-dominated forests stretch across the southeastern United States — from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas through Alabama, Mississippi, and beyond. Commercially classified together as Southern Pine or Southern Yellow Pine, these species share exceptional strength, relatively rapid growth, and the ability to regenerate through natural and managed forestry.

Carbon Storage in Timber

As pine trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon in their trunks, branches, roots, and surrounding soils. When timber is converted into a durable structure, a portion of that carbon remains stored in the wood throughout the product's service life.

Strategic Composite Surfaces

Horizontal boards experience some of the structure's longest and most demanding exposure to rain, standing moisture, sunlight, and foot traffic. To extend service life in these locations, PlaywoodPlus can substitute long-life composite decking — such as nominal two-inch Trex® boards — for selected walking and platform surfaces. Composite decking does not rot or require preservative treatment and provides a consistently smooth, splinter-resistant surface. These boards are installed over a properly designed timber or metal support system, with product selection, support spacing, drainage, expansion clearance, and fastening configured for the specific material and application.

Smooth, Carefully Finished Surfaces

Every accessible timber surface is precisely machined and carefully sanded to minimize splinters, sharp edges, and rough contact points. Attention to lumber quality, moisture content, joinery, and finishing helps the wood weather more evenly while reducing unnecessary surface deterioration. As the structure is enjoyed, frequently touched areas naturally develop a subtle patina — contact gradually burnishes the wood fibers, giving handrails and other high-use surfaces a smoother, comfortably worn character that adds warmth and authenticity over time.

Designed as a Complete System

Long-term performance does not come from any single material or feature. It comes from coordinating timber selection, moisture control, structural design, precision fabrication, hardware, drainage, and finishing. PlaywoodPlus considers each element as part of one integrated system — creating outdoor play structures designed to remain strong, functional, attractive, and maintainable through years of active use.

Premium Timber Selection

Structural performance begins with the material itself. Our timbers are carefully inspected for grade, strength, straightness, density, and overall quality before fabrication. Selecting consistent material helps every post, beam, platform, and connection perform as intended while supporting accurate joinery and a refined finished structure.

Kiln-Dried for Greater Stability

Our lumber is kiln-dried before treatment and kiln-dried again afterward — a controlled process known as KDAT, or Kiln Dried After Treatment. Because waterborne pressure treatment can substantially increase the wood's moisture content, this second kiln cycle removes added moisture before components are machined and assembled. Allowing treatment-related shrinkage to occur under controlled temperature and airflow improves dimensional consistency, machining accuracy, joint alignment, and finishing performance. It also reduces the potential for excessive cupping, twisting, checking, and warping after installation.

Engineered Load Design

Every PlaywoodPlus structure is designed around calculated load paths. Platforms, beams, posts, and connections are sized to accommodate the live and dynamic forces created by active children — not simply static weight. By considering how these forces travel through the structure and into its supports, we create play systems that remain solid and stable during energetic, real-world use. Connections, brackets, and supporting members work together as a complete structural system rather than as isolated components.

Precision Joinery

Precision-cut joinery allows adjoining timbers to fit together accurately and share loads across each connection. Combined with heavy-duty hardware, these closely fitted joints help resist racking, movement, wobbling, and the gradual loosening that can occur when a structure relies primarily on surface-driven nails or screws. At critical load-bearing connections, we use through-bolts paired with stainless-steel load rings. Through-bolts clamp the full thickness of adjoining timbers together, while the load rings distribute connection forces over a broader area of wood — helping limit localized compression, fastener pull-through, and wear while creating durable connections that remain accessible for inspection and maintenance.

Purpose-Built Structural Brackets

When a standard connector does not adequately address a particular load path, we fabricate custom brackets for the application. These purpose-built components are especially valuable in roof assemblies, complex timber intersections, and surface-mounted installations where forces must be transferred between members or into the supporting structure. Each bracket is configured around the connection geometry, loading arrangement, fastener pattern, material compatibility, and environmental exposure — allowing reinforcement to be placed precisely where it is needed without adding unnecessary bulk elsewhere.

Hardware Selected for the Application

Every connection depends on hardware matched to its structural role and environment. We use hot-dip galvanized (ASTM A153), ceramic- and epoxy-coated, and stainless-steel fasteners and connectors — each chosen for its specific exposure. Stainless steel is emphasized at critical load-bearing points, frequently handled areas, and locations subject to repeated wetting. Type 304 suits most demanding outdoor uses; Type 316 is specified for poolside, coastal, and salt-exposed environments. Coated products are used only when rated for direct contact with MCA-treated lumber. Tamper-resistant heads are standard at accessible connections, and every detail is designed to shed water rather than trap it. Compatible metals are paired within each assembly to reduce galvanic-corrosion risk.

Material Protection Where It Matters

Durability begins with matching each material to its exposure. Selected posts and timbers used at or near grade receive the higher preservative-retention level specified for ground contact, while horizontal surfaces can be upgraded with long-life composite decking where prolonged moisture and wear are greatest. Combined with kiln drying after treatment, proper drainage, compatible hardware, and careful detailing, these choices help the complete structure remain stable, serviceable, and attractive through years of outdoor use.

Strategic Composite Surfaces

Horizontal boards experience some of the structure's longest and most demanding exposure to rain, standing moisture, sunlight, and foot traffic. To extend service life in these locations, PlaywoodPlus can substitute long-life composite decking — such as nominal two-inch Trex® boards — for selected walking and platform surfaces. Composite decking does not rot or require preservative treatment and provides a consistently smooth, splinter-resistant surface. These boards are installed over a properly designed timber or metal support system, with product selection, support spacing, drainage, expansion clearance, and fastening configured for the specific material and application.

Smooth, Carefully Finished Surfaces

Every accessible timber surface is precisely machined and carefully sanded to minimize splinters, sharp edges, and rough contact points. Attention to lumber quality, moisture content, joinery, and finishing helps the wood weather more evenly while reducing unnecessary surface deterioration. As the structure is enjoyed, frequently touched areas naturally develop a subtle patina — contact gradually burnishes the wood fibers, giving handrails and other high-use surfaces a smoother, comfortably worn character that adds warmth and authenticity over time.

Designed as a Complete System

Long-term performance does not come from any single material or feature. It comes from coordinating timber selection, moisture control, structural design, precision fabrication, hardware, drainage, and finishing. PlaywoodPlus considers each element as part of one integrated system — creating outdoor play structures designed to remain strong, functional, attractive, and maintainable through years of active use.

Premium Timber Selection

Structural performance begins with the material itself. Our timbers are carefully inspected for grade, strength, straightness, density, and overall quality before fabrication. Selecting consistent material helps every post, beam, platform, and connection perform as intended while supporting accurate joinery and a refined finished structure.

Kiln-Dried for Greater Stability

Our lumber is kiln-dried before treatment and kiln-dried again afterward — a controlled process known as KDAT, or Kiln Dried After Treatment. Because waterborne pressure treatment can substantially increase the wood's moisture content, this second kiln cycle removes added moisture before components are machined and assembled. Allowing treatment-related shrinkage to occur under controlled temperature and airflow improves dimensional consistency, machining accuracy, joint alignment, and finishing performance. It also reduces the potential for excessive cupping, twisting, checking, and warping after installation.

Engineered Load Design

Every PlaywoodPlus structure is designed around calculated load paths. Platforms, beams, posts, and connections are sized to accommodate the live and dynamic forces created by active children — not simply static weight. By considering how these forces travel through the structure and into its supports, we create play systems that remain solid and stable during energetic, real-world use. Connections, brackets, and supporting members work together as a complete structural system rather than as isolated components.