Grain Stores, Gardening Sheds and One Very Patient Courtyard: The Strangest Spaces We've Ever Turned Into Playgrounds

People assume we hunt for big, blank, boring boxes. The truth is the opposite: the best pop-up play venues we've worked with have been awkward, characterful and occasionally downright difficult. A flat white-walled unit is easy. A 200-year-old threshing barn with a resident owl? That's a proper job.

Here are five of our favourites, warts and all.

1. The Grain Store That Became a Castle

A farmer outside Ludlow got in touch after his grain store sat empty for three winters. Concrete floor, corrugated roof, one set of doors wide enough for a tractor — and, crucially, acres of head height.

The challenge was less the space and more the paperwork. Agricultural buildings aren't automatically cleared for public events, so we spent six weeks on temporary use permissions, fire risk assessments and a lot of phone calls to the council. The build itself took two days: soft-play turrets, a ball-pit moat and a rope bridge strung between scaffold frames.

Families loved it precisely because it didn't feel like a leisure centre. Kids kept asking whether the building was 'a real castle'. Close enough.

2. A National Trust Courtyard, With Rules

Heritage venues come with heritage rules, and rightly so. For a spring half-term booking at a National Trust property courtyard, we couldn't drill, tape, anchor or lean anything against the original stonework. Everything had to be freestanding, weighted and signed off in advance.

It forced our best design work. A timber 'market garden maze' — all planters, willow tunnels and chalked flagstones — sat entirely under its own weight and came away without a scratch. The property's volunteer team were brilliant, and visitor dwell time in the courtyard roughly doubled over the fortnight.

Lesson: restrictions don't kill creativity. They aim it.

3. The Farm Shop With a Cheese Problem

A family-run farm shop wanted to lift quiet weekday trade, so we converted their back room into a 'little farmers' zone for under-fives. Lovely people, great produce, one issue: the wall we shared with the cheese store.

Every soft-play block went home smelling faintly of a very good Double Gloucester. We now travel with activated carbon sachets as standard kit, and the client still jokes about it. The event itself worked a treat — parents shopped while their toddlers burned energy twenty feet from the till, and weekday sales rose noticeably across the run.

4. A Multi-Storey Car Park Level, One Weekend Only

A city council asked us to animate an underused car park deck as part of a summer high street programme. Wind, no shade, painted bays and the faint aroma of exhaust. Not an obvious playground.

We treated it like a street festival rather than soft play: ground-marking games, oversized garden games, a pop-up café and shade sails tensioned between our own frames. The brief was footfall, and it delivered — the deck saw its busiest weekend since it opened, and two neighbouring cafés reported record takings.

5. The Village Hall We Almost Overlooked

Not every transformation is dramatic. A plain 1970s village hall, hired for a single Saturday, became a 'space mission' for a community fun day. Foil blankets, black-out lining, a climbing dome as the mothership. Cost a fraction of our bigger builds, sold out two sessions, and the hall committee has since booked quarterly events.

Sometimes the venue isn't the story. The design is.

So — Could Your Space Host Play?

If you own or manage a venue, ask yourself three questions:

• Is there clear floor space? Roughly 8m x 8m is enough for a solid under-8s zone.
• Can people get in and out safely? Wide access, level thresholds and a fire exit matter more than looks.
• Would you be happy hosting a birthday party? If yes, you're probably viable.

Barns, courtyards, empty retail units, function rooms, even car parks — if families can safely gather in it, we can usually make it play. Drop us a line with a few photos and we'll tell you honestly whether your space has legs.