The YMCA PLAYNASIUM

Bayly recently partnered up with the team at McCann Worldgroup to bring to life an exciting new product with positive social impact for YMCA Victoria, the Playnasium.  What is the Playnasium I hear you ask?  The Playnasium is a collection of outdoor equipment that integrates childrens play equipment with adults exercise equipment, something we feel has long been missing from our parks and recreational areas.

How the Playnasium came about?

YMCA is a community not for profit organisation, that believes in the benefits of physical activity, empowering young people, and building community connections.  The Playnasium was developed as a means for YMCA to communicate their vision of ‘improving the health and happiness’ of the wider community through physical engagement.  The idea was developed from the desire to bring together families by encouraging parents and children to engage and interact together outdoors.  The exercise equipment uses the weight of the child as resistance, and as such the movement of the child is directly related to the actions of the parent.  The equipment is also designed so the child is facing the parent, helping build the relationship and connection between them during the activity.

A Pop-up installation

The Playnasium has been developed as a tool to assist YMCA to engage with a broader audience and help communicate what they stand for; health and happiness.  As a part of the engagement program the equipment had to be a ‘pop-up’ design, as it was required to be moved around and set up at different locations around the CBD.  This brought with it it’s own set of challenges.  As most of the elements of the equipment are structural, and support both adults and children, it was imperative that any assembly points were strong and ensured a secure connection when assembled.

Safety considerations

As the equipment involves the interaction of children as well as adults, it was required to meet a number of Australian Standards.  These covered everything from material selection and finish to entrapment and fall issues.  Ergonomics also played a major role in the design of the equipment and formed the basis for all sizing and structural considerations.

Public reactions and the official launch

The Playnasium equipment had it's first offical launch on Sunday 15th January the initial reaction has been extremely positive.  Most commonly people were heard saying ‘why hasn’t this been done before?’.  The parents were seen getting a kick out of exercising on the equipment and having fun with their children and, kids being kids love anything to do with a playground.  It was interesting to see the kids wanting to step in and take the adults role on the equipment, some of them doing surprisingly well.  Check out the official website for more information at http://playnasium.ymca.org.au/

In the pursuit of health and happiness

At first glance the Playnasium appears to be not only achieving the objective of sharing YMCA’s core statement of health and happiness, but is going above and beyond and redefining what outdoor playground and exercise equipment should be.  It is this innovation and foresight in family activity and bonding that will really resonate with the community and reinforce that YMCA really has everyone's best interests at heart.

If you are looking to reach a wider audience or create a statement around what your company stands for please contact our product design team in Melbourne on +61 3 9413 9000 or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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 See the YMCA Playnasium in action below