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As part of a global education community spanning roughly 2,500 schools, the Waldorf education curriculum is one of the fastest-growing educational approaches in the word.  Rooted in over 90 years of history, the Waldorf model focuses on creative problem solving, the development of personal connections and aiding their students in becoming centred, giving them the necessary confidence to succeed in life.

The Toronto Waldorf School officially opened its doors in the fall of 1968 with 19 children enrolled in Grades 1 and 2.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Today the institution educates children of all ages with programming running from early childhood programs all the way to the school’s Grade 8 curriculum, focusing on developing lifelong learners from within its walls.

Operating 119 fitness and lifestyle centres across the United States and Canada, the Life Time Fitness and Life Time Athletic brands are well on their way to establishing themselves as leaders in the health and wellness field.

As part of the organization’s expansion into Canada, we have been with them every step of the way.  Our team provided them with assistance and products for their Mississauga location back in 2012 and for their Ajax location just last year.

As the organization was ready to unveil yet another state-of-the-art fitness and health facility, we were right there to provide them with everything they needed once again.  The site of their most recently established Life Time Athletic location is located in the Vaughan region just north of the City of Toronto.  The facility offers members the benefits of a full-service spa, cafe, indoor cycling studio, indoor turf field, basketball courts and much more.

We all love the roar of the crowd while taking in a football game, or the rush we get while watching players blaze down a basketball court.  The sensations that sports illicit in both spectators and participants can sometimes make us forget about everything that went into the design and production of the courts, bleachers and other athletic products used on a daily basis.

Before these products hit the floor of any gymnasium or grace the sidelines of any football field or soccer pitch, they oftentimes have gone through years of research and development.  While technological and design elements are forever changing, making our lives easier, safety is still the top priority for equipment and infrastructure manufacturers like us and the customers we serve.

One of our more recent, multi-facility projects brought us to the picturesque Ottawa Valley, just west of Canada’s capital region. Encompassing two school boards in the region, a number of schools have been operating with padding that no longer is deemed safe for use under current guidelines.

This project had us working at five different schools in both the Renfrew County District School Board and within the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board. The schools range in locations scattered throughout the Ottawa Valley starting in Arnprior and working up the line in schools in the Petawawa area.

Sport Systems was commissioned to remove the out-dated existing padding from each of the five schools as the pads no longer met the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association (OPHEA) guidelines. In addition to the removal of the existing padding, the school boards also ordered a number of replacement pads for multiple locations within the schools. The padding installation locations varied from school to school, but the bulk of the padding ordered was for use as protective wall padding in the gymnasiums of the school. The remainder of the padding was designed for use on stages and bleacher seating sections for additional safety for both spectators and participants.

What has been somewhat of a topic of debate for a number of years is the amount of wall padding that is required within gymnasiums and other athletic facilities. Today, there remains no governing body outlining specific standards, but there have been many opinions formed on the subject.

Our recommendation is that there is always up to 10 feet of unobstructed space surrounding a basketball court and that wall padding is installed in high-speed areas such as below basketball goals at a maximum of four feet above the playing surface.

With this in mind, one of our most recent projects had us designing, manufacturing and installing a number of customized wall pads for use in a number of community centres.

The City of Vaughan was the location of this project, situated just north of Toronto with a population of over 320,000 people. The municipality encompasses the communities of Concord, Kleinburg, Maple, Thornhill and Woodbridge and was officially incorporated as a city in 1991. The city put this project out to tender which Sport Systems successfully secured, and then got to work designing the perfect padding systems for their community centres.

We all lead busy lives and at times, months, maybe even years seem to pass rather quickly. For facility managers, there are just so many moving parts to a gymnasium or other athletic facility that overtime, certain pieces of equipment might be overlooked.

It is no secret that the wall padding inside your gymnasium plays a very important role in the safety of those who use it. High speed sports such as basketball often have players bumping into wall surfaces as they pivot to get back in the game. These wall pads can also turn out to be quite versatile to many facility operators. When equipped with a removable wall padding product, individual slab mats are easily taken down for other uses such as gymnastics, wresting and other exercises.

But, at what point should you consider replacing your gym wall padding?

The answer to that question is not always apparent as there are many factors to be considered when evaluating the condition of your current padding:

In addition to traditional fitness applications such as training facilities and gymnasiums, a large portion of our custom padding department is dedicated to the production of fully padded rooms for a variety of different uses. While each padded room comes with different application requirements, the majority are used as a safety precaution in hospitals and health facilities or simply for providing relaxation, comfort or to heighten the senses.

As of late, we have been involved in projects aiming to design and build Snoezelen multi-sensory environments for clients around the globe. Here are some of the basics surrounding these popular sensory-focused padded rooms:

What is Snoezelen Multi-Sensory Environment?

This concept was actually designed by a pair of Dutch therapists in the late 1970’s who were working at a local centre for people experiencing intellectual disabilities. These therapists eventually would create an environment for their patients that would excite the senses and prove to be quite beneficial to their early subjects.

One of our busiest departments is our padding department. We receive thousands of inquiries, questions and requests for custom padding designs and solutions each year. As one can very well imagine, this portion of our business has expanded well beyond the traditional athletic applications such as gymnasiums and athletic floor mats. Today, we proudly equip a wide variety of organizations and facilities with highly detailed and highly customized padding solutions, where no two projects are ever the same.

Aside from the traditional applications, we design and create custom padded room designs for use in treatment centres and healthcare facilities such as hospitals. We provide many of our commercial and industrial clientele with strategically placed wall, column and frame padding to keep employees safe and also offer a padding line specifically designed for use with veterinary facilities, keeping staff and animals safe during their visits.

As we work our way into the month of July, our installation team remains busy with on-site visits and unique installations of athletic infrastructure across the country. Given the busy sport seasons that begin in the spring and start or extend through the summer months and into the fall, our team is firing on all cylinders.

We were commissioned recently by Life Time Athletic to complete a large project that was to span across two phases of work for their gymnasium. The first phase involved the design, supply and installation of basketball backstops, followed by the second phase that consisted of fire-resistant wall padding to be custom fit to the unique design of the gymnasium.