Playground equipment
“Designing playground equipment adds another dimension to my artistic pleasure. Children’s play is comparable to the artist’s creative adventure. Play is an essential element of the creative process. Children’s play is very close to it. For me, my designs are in this way full-fledged works of art in which the spectator’s cerebral play is supplemented by the physical. Many attractions in amusement parks consist mainly of the effort of experiencing. While active participation should always be the healthiest relaxation, today it is usually reduced to walking from one spectacular attraction to another. That is why I particularly like to focus on designs for playgrounds. The motivation for these devices is always the same: to design safe and active play equipment for all ages.”
Climbing castles
The motivation for this device is the same as for the merry-go-round: to design a safe playground device for all ages. During the studies I made when designing my climbing castles, I learned at Vives in Kortrijk that a child will never climb further than his own sense of danger. The system of concentric stairs that form the thresholds for the age at the ‘Mill’ is replaced here by the ever-increasing distances between the tubes.
As with my climbing castles. The angle of the jump is 45 degrees, so you can only crawl, not stand. The climbing distance is 15 meters, the material consists of tubes in painted steel. Descending is done with slides, the whole is fenced and covered by nets. At the bottom at the beginning there is a play area for the little ones.
Merry-go-round
“Many attractions in amusement parks consist mainly of the effort of undergoing. While active participation should always be the healthiest relaxation, today it is usually reduced to walking from one spectacular attraction to the next. That is why I focus my attention mainly on designs for playgrounds.
My starting point here was to create a dynamic variant for yet another fairly passive device: the merry-go-round. Apart from the beautiful antique merry-go-rounds such as in the Efteling, the target audience is generally limited to toddlers. In addition, merry-go-rounds in playgrounds are dangerous if they are not supervised. A challenge, therefore. And it is mainly in function of this that I have come up with this design.”
The concept is quite simple: creating safety by means of concentric stairs that divide the body length by sticks above the head, as in small ski lifts. The largest ones walk on the outer track and make the greatest speed. The inner track is for the very smallest and has chairs, the calculated speed here can only be a maximum of 5 km/h. The mechanical part is protected in a column and the rotor is at the top and out of reach. The sticks are staggered so that the number of participants is limited and they cannot get in each other’s way. The device is driven by pulling with the sticks. Once in motion you can hang on to it but not working means coming to a standstill… So the opposite of the ski lift.
Windhopper and Flat Run
This toy can only be used on open plains with a relatively soft surface such as beaches or grass fields. It can be described as a kite with which you can make giant jumps. The name is derived from the English grasshopper: grasshopper.
Like surf sails, it also uses the wind and resembles a miniature hang glider in shape. Of course, it can be completely dismantled. It consists of a tightly stretched wing that is controlled by both arms and is connected to a simple vest or harness via a ball joint on the back between the shoulders. A strong spring system is built into this connection that is contracted during the jump with the force of the arms and is released when pushing off. This is to increase this force and overcome gravity, compare it to pumping. The hopper is therefore catapulted into the air on a small scale again and again.
Design of an attraction of two-person bobsleighs on wheels. The carriages are lifted up by a chain and go down in free-fall speed. Housing: transparent tube on a rail.
