Sunrise Play Cafe, Washington, USA
Mooton designed and delivered a fully customized, immersive growth playground for children aged 0–10, themed around “Sunrise” and nature. Spanning 1,100 sqft, the space seamlessly blends functionality with storytelling. It features dedicated zones including an entry area, guardian café counter, interactive wall play section, soft sensory zone for toddlers, climbing area, and a central two-level wooden play structure.
This centerpiece is connected by a glowing rainbow acrylic bridge to a role-playing village complete with supermarket, fire station, kitchen, hospital, and an interactive fire truck, as well as a physical play area centered around a custom tree with multi-level net climbs. The overall aesthetic combines natural brown and green tones with soft orange, yellow, and blue accents. Elements like rolling hills, trees, winding paths, flowing rivers, and floating clouds come together to create a safe, dreamlike sunrise forest landscape.
Photo Galleries
Design Concept
The sunrise feature serves as an emotional focal point, symbolizing hope and vitality. Complex climbing, sliding, and crawling systems challenge children to push their limits, enhancing physical strength, coordination, and courage. Rich role-playing environments offer a stage for social games, helping children learn rules, practice collaboration, and develop language skills and empathy.
Strict zoning and full soft padding ensure safety for all ages. From gentle sensory spaces to stimulating climbing zones, the design supports different developmental stages. Mooton is committed to creating a secure haven that integrates nature, physical activity, role-playing, and sensory stimulation—a place where every child can grow with the promise of a new day.
The Application Of Design Concept
The welcoming entry features shoe storage and seating, leading to a café counter where parents can relax with a drink while enjoying a full view of the play area. This zone enables efficient crowd management and supervision, allowing parents to socialize, rest, or observe their children in a comfortable setting.
Utilizing the backside of the café and storage units, this zone includes magnetic drawing walls, gear panels, and fantasy track walls. Animal-shaped chairs and cozy beanbags provide seating, creating a creative corner for quiet play, drawing, puzzles, and parent-child reading that stimulates imagination and focus.
This fully padded enclosed area features soft hills and a central tree with a planting farm soft play set. The floor mimics natural terrain, providing a safe space for crawling, toddling, and exploration. The gentle rolling terrain supports sensory and vestibular development, while farm-themed toys encourage early role-play and tactile learning.
Accessible via rainbow steps from the sensory zone, this area includes soft climbing walls designed as mini-hills and cottages, all atop thick foam flooring. It serves as a transitional zone offering moderate climbing challenges to build strength, coordination, and confidence, leading seamlessly to the main play structure.
A series of themed cottages including supermarket, kitchen, fire station, hospital, and home surround a play fire truck. Accessed via stairs, climbing points, or the rainbow bridge, this social theater inspires imitation and imagination. Highly contextual settings help children learn social rules, cooperation, communication, and emotional regulation.
An artistic tree with layered net climbs connects to the rainbow bridge and leads to an upper platform with musical instruments and a glowing golden sun. Multi-color light rods mimic fireflies or starlight, while a spiral slide returns to ground level. This zone offers comprehensive physical challenges and sensory surprises, developing motor skills and coordination through the nets. The sunrise ritual adds drama and achievement, enhanced by magical light effects and the fun of the slide.
This multi-route wooden fortress includes stairs, climbing nets, and grips leading to multiple slide exits such as straight and spiral slides. It serves as the visual and functional core of the playground, encouraging children to make choices, develop spatial awareness, and build courage through exploration and height.
