Thorpe Farm

Thorpe Farm wanted to transform an underutilised 2,000 square foot building attatched to their thriving farm shop into something new for their visitors. The aim was to create a bespoke indoor soft play that would complement the farm's existing cafe and holiday park, while giving families another reason to spend time at Thorpe Farm.

Designed for children aged 0-9, the space needed to work for a wide range of ages while still feeling exciting and engaging. The challenge was making the most of a relatively compact footprint without making the space feel limited.

Focus was put on creating a play environment that felt full of things to discover, rather than simply filling the room with a large structure. From the toddler area through to the junior frame, the design makes use of the available space to give children plenty of opportunities to climb, balance, explore and play. The building came with an important technical challenge: underfloor heating. This meant that we couldn't simply fix the soft play structure directly into the existing floor. To provide a secure foundation without damaging the heating system, we designed and manufactured a custom timber raft specifically for the project.

This gave the structure the secure floor that it needed, while allowing the existing heating system to remain protected. It was another example of how a bespoke approach allowed us to design the commercial soft play around the building, rather than expecting the building to work around the standard structure. The soft play area was meticulously designed and manufactured by our skilled team using premium, UK-sourced materials. The brief was simple: Children should feel like they were stepping into the farm. The standout feature is the bespoke barn facade, designed to look like a traditional farm building with a warm yellow finish. Sitting on the second level of the soft play, the windmill can even be spun by children inside the structure.

Elsewhere, the farm theme continues through features such as the cow-print Dizzy Disc and vertical rollers, along with bespoke floorboards that feature mud and grass effects. Interactive wall games and bouncy ball boards add more opportunities for play, while the chocolate-inspired twin lane slide gives the junior frame another distinctive feature for the young visitors.

The toddler area included a ball pool spinner, interactive sensry wall games and cushioned climbing blocks to ensure age-appropriate challenges were delivered to each age group. The finished play area gives Thorpe Farm another experience to offer alongside its farm shop, cafe and holiday accommodation, creating a more family friendly destination. Despite the limitations of the 2,000 square footprint, the finished indoor playground is packed with things for children to discover across both the junior and toddler areas.

As the Thorpe Farm team put it: "We might not have masses of square footage but what we have inside of it will keep the kids entertained for a few hours." They also highlighted how many parents were relaxing in the toddler area and how the new attraction helped the farm reach a whole new demographic.

Since installation, Play Creations has maintained a strong partnership with Thorpe Farm, providing