Mats create a safe and healthy environment for daycare
Tampereen Voimia procures and monitors the catering and sanitation services for the City of Tampere in Finland. When starting the cooperation with Lindström they wanted to create a safe and healthy environment with design mats that are replaced regularly. “Replaceable mats reduce dust and improve the cleanliness of the premises and the quality of indoor air,” says Elina Ahtiala-Huotari, head of product development at Voimia. The colorful design mats for the Linnainmaa and Kämmenniemi daycare centres were designed in cooperation with Lindström and the staff and children of the daycare centres.
The mats combine cleanliness with comfort and learning
The goal was to design mats that are both clean and comfortable and that also have an educational function. All the mats have been designed to support a skill, a task or a small group activity. The mats offer children opportunities to play and to learn the days of the week or tell the time. Some mats have letters or animals printed on them and these can serve as seats during story time or morning circle. For one of the mats, the children themselves designed the patterns and positioned them on paper. A copy of this paper served as the design of the mat. Some of the mats were based on the children’s own drawings.
Tanja Saukkosaari, deputy director of Linnainmaa daycare centre, says that the mats delighted their recipients: “The mats are, after all, beautiful, wonderfully colourful and, as an added bonus, were designed by us. Let’s just say that the children are very excited about them. The material is of high quality and feels comfortable to sit and play on”.
Saukkosaari says that the products have also been well received by the staff at the daycare centre and she believes they will have an uplifting and motivating effect. She also explains that, as the mats are in active use, it is ideal that they are replaced often and that there is a spare copy of each mat.
