TouchWood Play x Marriott prospectus by touchwoodplay

TouchWood Play prospectus

At TouchWood, we are passionate about real play.

The spaces we create are meaningfully connected to their surroundings and to the clients we work with . Because at TouchWood, we play together

Our mission is to create amazing, unique play experiences where kids can use their imagination to have their own adventures in a safe, stimulating and natural setting.

Since 2002, we’ve created hundreds of play experiences for hotels, visitor attractions, parks and public spaces and schools across the world.

Everything we design is unique, and wherever possible it is crafted from locally-sourced, sustainable and durable woods including robinia, larch, chestnut and oak.

TouchWood is one of very few companies that source and process our raw materials, then design, manufacture, install and maintain our play equipment. Our difference is the care and value we give to each piece of timber that goes into your play space.

We mix natural, sustainable materials and a passion for adventurous, educational play, with the practical know-how and inventive design skills to make sure every play space is safe, long-lasting and special.

We design each project from scratch in close collaboration with each client, and often with the active input of children and your community members. We want to understand exactly what you want to achieve, what kind of play you want to encourage, what your commercial objectives are and the personality and subtleties of your project environment.

What we achieve is a special combination of ground-breaking design and creativity, pioneering technology and traditional craftsman skills, ensuring your play features facilitate outstanding natural play and offer exceptional structural beauty and integrity.

Our process

Stage 1 GET IN TOUCH

Speak to our expert team about your play project.

Stage 5 INSTALLATION, SIGNOFF & SUPPORT

Once installed, our independent play safety inspector signs off the play area. You’ll then receive a detailed operation and maintenance manual and details of our maintenance service.

Stage 2

CONCEPT DESIGN

Creative development - site survey, collaborative design and pricing assurance.

Stage 3

TECHNICAL DESIGN

We create and send technical drawings for you to sign off.

Stage 4

MANUFACTURE

We build your playground features at our woodyard.

Play experiences

At TouchWood, we create play settings that inspire imagination, promote physical activity and foster social interaction . By using only natural materials and designs, our structures encourage children to explore and play freely, allowing them to choose their own adventures

Adventure play

Play experiences

Enhance the guest experience

Play experiences

PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE PLAY

Sensory play

Play experiences

Ignite their creativity

Play experiences

Water play

KEEP COOL IN WARM WEATHER

Sand and gravel play

Play experiences

ENCOURAGE IMMERSIVE PLAY

Dynamic family play

Play experiences

Inspire intergenerational play

Play experiences

Imaginative play

Spark their imagination

Case studies

Our inspiring case studies share how our innovative playgrounds have supported our clients to create amazing play spaces for their visitors

Paignton Z0o, UK: £105,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Design overview

Climbing tree: £6,700*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Festyland, France: £385,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Festyland, France: £385,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

The Eden Project: £450,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

The Eden Project: £450,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

The Eden Project: £450,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Design overview

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Gravel chute and pulley board: £2,300*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Birdworld, UK: £1,300,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Birdworld, UK: £1,300,000*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Design overview

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Tunnel with water: £34,500*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Tunnel with water: £34,500*

*Excludes shipping, travel, accommodation, play safety inspection and local taxes

Who we’ve worked with

PARC DE LA COCCINELLE

CHURCHFIELDS FARM

WHO WE’VE WORKED WITH FARMER PALMERS

FESTYLAND

BICESTER VILLAGE

HOBBLEDOWN

Who we’ve worked with

Your team

Torin Lee DESIGN MANAGER

Matthew Brady HEAD OF SALES

Rachel Bramley PLANNING & PERFORMANCE MANAGER

Tim Harms MANAGING DIRECTOR

Adrian Fawcett OPERATIONS MANAGER

Joe Cooper FOUNDER

Inclusion & accessibility

TouchWood integrates inclusive play into our approach, conducting equality impact assessments to understand potential impacts and tailor designs for diverse children and parents.

We carry out high-level equality impact assessments with clients and stakeholders to establish and understand key potential positive and negative impacts of our designs.

This enables us to focus on aspects of design to create a rich mix of physical, creative and social play opportunities and spaces to engage the senses and opportunities for a diversity of children and parents.

To support disabled children, young people, and their families to be and become more active, the TouchWood approach takes account of the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines for Disabled Children and Disabled Young People 2022.

Our design’s inclusive aims include:

• accessible play

• meeting new people and social integration

• muscle and motor skills

• balance and co-ordination

• confidence and concentration

• mental health and wellbeing

• stress reduction

• sense of achievement

We apply an appropriate age range of anthropometrics to our designs. Additionally, our designs will encourage intergenerational play, fostering interaction between adults and children. Our equipment and features will offer versatility, accommodating various body shapes and abilities for engaging activities and exercises, both challenging and manageable.

Our designs aim to accommodate children and parents with diverse physical, sensory, and neurodivergent abilities. We carefully consider a wide spectrum of mobility aids and equipment, ensuring inclusivity and accessibility for all individuals.

We collaborate closely with Burdus Access, consultants specialising in inclusive design and engagement, to ensure that inclusivity and accessibility are at the core of our concept development process.

Quality control and management statement

At TouchWood, we take pride in our approach to playground projects. From sourcing and processing raw materials to customising designs and ensuring installation meets the highest standards, we handle every aspect with care and professionalism.

Our process begins with understanding our customers’ needs, followed by in-house design that caters to their specifications. We meticulously craft each element of our equipment and site layout, ensuring a unique and bespoke play area for every client.

To guarantee safety and durability, our designs undergo thorough checks by our expert teams. Before construction begins, materials are rigorously inspected to ensure they are of the highest quality.

Throughout the build process, our dedicated supervisors oversee every detail, ensuring materials, equipment, and workmanship exceed expectations. Upon completion, our installations undergo comprehensive quality checks to ensure they meet both our standards and those of our customers.

Upon completion, all of our playgrounds are fully inspected by ROSPA Play Safety, ensuring compliance with all relevant health, safety, and quality standards.

Post-completion, we offer annual maintenance plans to uphold the longevity and safety of the play area.

Play safety compliance and risk management

At TouchWood, we prioritise safety while also recognising the importance of allowing children to explore and challenge themselves.

During the technical design stage of our projects, we collaborate closely with David Yearly from RoSPA Play Safety. David uses the BS EN71177/6 guidance to assess risk levels and provide valuable insights.

Our goal is to ensure that the level of risk present in our bespoke play features is at an acceptable level, balancing safety with the opportunity for children to learn and develop. This assessment is conducted throughout the design and construction phases and is finalised during installation and sign-off.

It’s important to note that while our play spaces may contain some risks, they also offer numerous benefits to children’s development, including increased physical activity, problem-solving skills, teamwork, and social interaction. Our aim is not to create risk-free play areas, as acceptable risk is integral to engaging and beneficial play experiences.

To ensure safety standards are met, we collaborate with independent play safety inspectors who evaluate risk levels according to BS EN1177 and BS EN1176 guidelines. This assessment occurs during both the design and construction phases, with a final on-site inspection conducted at handover. Clients receive a detailed report outlining the risk assessment findings.

Our environmental policy

At TouchWood, we are fully committed to minimising our environmental footprint and this is an integral part of our business objectives. We understand that responsible environmental practices are crucial to our ongoing success.

As a manufacturer, installer and procurer of playground equipment and associated products, we ensure that all our operations comply with relevant environmental legislation and adhere to current best practices. We also encourage our suppliers and subcontractors to adopt comparable standards.

To meet these objectives, we establish and maintain strict standards and management procedures. Regular reviews and updates ensure that we stay informed about evolving environmental requirements.

We allocate necessary resources to implement our environmental policy and management system effectively. Setting regular objectives and targets allows us to continually improve our environmental performance and measure our progress.

To prevent environmental incidents, we have established procedures to minimise potential impacts and mitigate any issues promptly. We also consider environmental performance when selecting subcontractors and suppliers.

Our objectives and targets include:

• reducing material consumption, promoting reuse, recycling and the use of recycled materials

• considering environmental factors when selecting materials

• ensuring all timber comes from FSC-certified suppliers or sustainable sources within the UK

• striving for energy efficiency in our offices, plants and vehicles

• minimising harmful emissions and appropriately managing waste materials, including adhering to site waste management plans and legal requirements

At TouchWood, environmental responsibility is not just a goal; it’s a commitment we uphold in every aspect of our operations.

Material statement

At TouchWood, we strive to utilise a variety of materials closest to their natural form to create imaginative and immersive play environments We believe that this approach will succeed in creating a new innovative experience for the children who use it, not only to help them play together, but to explore new skills and hobbies which will inspire them as they grow

To ensure that your environment has a long-lasting effect on children’s play experience, we include a range of beautiful, durable materials of the highest quality. We ensure that the materials we use are untreated and locally sourced to be as sustainable as possible, often seeking naturally felled timbers and timber from managed woodlands. We ensure that we utilise the best quality timbers which, in their natural state, will match or succeed the durability of treated timber alternatives.

KILN DRIED LARCH BOARDS

The UK-sourced cladding we use in our structures range between a milled larch and a more organic finish with a waney edge. These boards are natural and beautiful with a pink hue that fades into a silvered sheen, which ensures that the materials bed themselves in the landscape as they age.

ROBINIA ROUNDWOOD

Renowned for its incredible durability, we ensure that this European-sourced timber is utilised in structural elements, particularly when being fixed into the ground.

With an expected lifespan in the ground of between 15 and 25 years, you can be assured that your structures will continue to last and provide an exciting play environment for generations of children. With a golden hue which naturally silvers over time, this marries with our larch to create timeless pieces of equipment.

LOCALLY SOURCED OAK AND CHESTNUT

We strive to utilise locally-sourced hardwoods such as oak and sweet chestnut within our designs, where possible. These are timbers of the highest quality and durability which we ensure are sourced from naturally felled trees within a 50- mile radius of our woodyard. Our oak sleepers are sourced from managed British woodlands to ensure we source as locally and sustainably as possible.

LIVE WILLOW

We work very closely with one of the UK’s best willow artists to create natural play structures and play routes which engage children’s imagination and senses, as well as providing and encouraging discovery of their natural environment. We create areas suitable for gathering or for peaceful contemplation.

GLACIAL BOULDERS

We source our boulders from UK quarries, always trying to work with quarries closest to each site. We use a variety of rocks from slate to granite and in a variety of sizes depending on their function and use. We always aim to use glacial-like boulders as they are perfect for building while being smoother and safer for the users.

STAINLESS STEEL FEATURES AND FIXINGS

The wide range of equipment that we install will come equipped with stainless steel features, fixtures and fittings which withstand all weather environments and continue to look fresh and clean all year round.

STEEL CORE NYLON-BOUND ROPES

All our rope and net equipment will be fitted with highquality steel core nylon-bound ropes. They will provide all your climbing, balancing and scrambling apparatus with a superior strength and a soft, natural finish which marries beautifully with our natural timbers. These can be made in a wide variety of colours. We ensure that all ropes are bespoke to fit out equipment as seamlessly as possible to make the best use of the space you have available.

CONCRETE

We like to use a minimal amount of concrete, where possible. When not using oak sleeper foundations, we use concrete foundations. Features such as our water rill uses glacial boulders set into the concrete surfacing. It is used for its strength and durability.

SAFETY SURFACING

We use a variety of safety surfacing. Play-grade pea gravel is our favourite natural loose fill that has wonderful playful mobility. Grass matting is a strong and long-lasting surfacing that blends into the natural surroundings.

It protect the roots of grass, vegetation and soil health whilst still allowing natural drainage thanks to its porous design.

Building methodology

PRIOR TO WORK STARTING

A site pack will be prepared which incorporate full design and relevant paperwork in keeping with standards and guidelines.

Visual inspections on all hand tools and equipment to be completed prior to use. Site operatives to carry out visual inspection to their Personal Protective Equipment. Prior to work starting a final survey is undertaken to ensure no changes to the specification or layout. This will be carried out by the designated installer. Please note that only competent and authorised persons to will complete the installation.

Ensure permission has been issued by the client before commencing work. Site set out and preparation prior to work commencement with designer and client. Prepare site for heavy plant access using track mats.

DURING WORKS

Cat scan work area for any existing services and mark out located services. Excavate marked out locations for concrete pads / pole positions and foot positioning, hand digging to shape up excavated holes protect excavated holes with orange fencing one metre back from excavation.

Trim any small roots with pruning saw or secateurs to ensure clean cut. Cut back to lateral bud if possible.

Remove excavated waste as quote. Where possible recycling soil within site where areas may need to be built up. Mix and pour concrete into excavated holes to stated level. Move all play equipment into park and fix together with use of power tools.

Install all play equipment, attaching pole supports to concrete pads and into soil where necessary.

Install surfacing base, levelling out surface discrepancies with washed grit sand.

Glue and plug any fixing holes and sand back flush.

Snag and sand any rough timber using sanding equipment and full PPE.

Tidy finished playground removing all generated waste.

ACCESS, PARKING AND DELIVERIES

Vehicle size will depend on the scale of delivery. Deliveries to be made on lorry as small as possible for practicality and access. For large deliveries of aggregates and building materials, various sized tippers will be used but again smaller vehicles will,be used where practicable.

Vehicle movement around site will be limited, and track mats will be used to protect root zones. Tree canopy/ root zones will be fenced off where feasible concerning access around them. Working area will be fenced off with Heras fencing, including portioning the existing toddler play area from the working area.

STORAGE AND SECURITY

Small items and materials will be stored within the main site fenced off area and within the fenced off storage area created around the welfare unit. Larger items awaiting installation will be stored were convenient to client as near to site as possible.

CONTRACTOR SITE RULES

The contractor will establish and display rules for visitors entering the site. These are as follows:

• All visitors to site should report to the site agent on site both their presence and their intentions.

• The visitor should also make the operatives aware that they are leaving site.

• Before they commence work, operatives should report to the site agent for an induction, which will identify the health and safety considerations for the site.

• A method statement must be supplied by subcontractors before their operatives start work. All visitors to wear hi-vis vest and steel toe cap boots.

EQUIPMENT USED

• 12m telehandler or larger depending on hire availability

• 18v battery operated power tools

• Hand tools as required

• 3t excavator

• Plate compactor, petrol generator

• Cement mixer

• Contract crane lift

PPE REQUIREMENTS

Standard: protective footwear, high visibility vest, hard hat, protective gloves.

Additional: hearing protection/ dust mask / safety glasses.

Aftercare

At TouchWood, we’re dedicated to ensuring your playground remains a safe and enjoyable environment for all. We offer a comprehensive Aftercare service designed to support you in maintaining the longevity and safety of your play area.

Warranty

Our equipment comes with a warranty to provide you with peace of mind regarding its quality and performance.

Full details can be found on the following page.

Maintenance

Maintenance is essential for the sustained functionality of play spaces. While wear and tear are natural signs of a popular and well-used play area, proper management of maintenance is crucial for safety.

We provide guidance on maintaining your play area to ensure its safe operation.

OUR AFTERCARE SUPPORT

Upon completion of installation, we provide you with an inspection and maintenance manual. This manual includes checklists based on our guidelines, enabling you to create your own inspection and maintenance plan.

Many of our clients take advantage of our Annual Maintenance visit, where our experienced team conducts thorough checks to keep your play area in top condition.

Play Safety

Compliance with safety standards, such as BS EN1176 and recommendations from the Health and Safety Executive, is vital. We strongly recommend an annual inspection by a qualified body like RoSPA to ensure ongoing safety and legal compliance.

By combining this visit with an Annual Play Safety inspection, we ensure your equipment remains compliant with safety standards.

Our dedicated Aftersales team is committed to helping you get the most out of your playground and maintaining its safety for years to come.

Warranties

We offer a range of different warranties depending on the type of element and timber used. Our main warranties are shown in the table below.