Connaught Park spray park, Vancouver: StreetBond surface renewal

The spray park surface at Connaught Park in Kitsilano was renewed in StreetBond® coatings, to a design developed with the Kitsilano Community Centre Association, the Kitsilano War Memorial Community Centre, members of the community, and Space2place landscape architecture.

Connaught Park is a well-used Kitsilano neighbourhood park. The spray park is a summer anchor for families in the area, a location that sees concentrated use from June through September, with significant foot traffic from children running across the surface repeatedly throughout the day.

Spray park surface requirements

Spray parks have specific surface requirements that make StreetBond a well-suited specification. The combination of water saturation, children running barefoot, UV exposure, and the wear from constant foot traffic demands a coating system that:

• Remains slip-resistant when wet (an aggregate finish is non-negotiable)
• Holds colour under intense summer UV without bleaching or chalking
• Is comfortable for bare feet: grip without roughness
• Can be detailed in multiple colours to support playful design layouts

StreetBond meets all of these. The formulation is used in water park and spray pad applications across North America, including several installations we have completed in Burnaby: Keswick Water Park, Wesburn Park and Confederation Park.

Community-led design

The Connaught Park renewal was notable for the community involvement in the design process. The Kitsilano Community Centre Association, local residents, and the landscape architecture team at Space2place collaborated on the visual design before we were engaged to install it.

Working from a design that had community buy-in meant the installation brief was clear and the final result reflected what the neighbourhood actually wanted for the space.

The system

Square One installs StreetBond under our decorative coatings service. The manufacturer's published facts: it is a water-based acrylic pavement coating for asphalt or concrete, with an anti-skid aggregate for wet surfaces, more than 50 standard colours plus custom mixing, and a UV-stable finish. The manufacturer gives it an 8+ year life cycle and describes the end of that cycle as a refresh rather than a replacement: a worn spray pad is recoated over the existing surface, which is what happened at Keswick. The StreetBond product page carries the specification, and the parks and paths gallery shows spray pads across the Lower Mainland.

How a spray pad goes down

The order of work is the same on every pad. The surface is cleaned and primed (StreetBond bonds to asphalt and to concrete, with the appropriate primer for each) and where a pad has old coating, grime or markings to remove, our own vapour blasting rig does the preparation. The design is laid out on the surface, the colour fields go on in sequence with the aggregate in the coating, and the pad stays closed until the coating has cured. Spray pads are easier to prepare than most civic surfaces because the park is closed during the work and the surface is built to drain.

For a parks department

• Involve the community in the design early, as happened here; a layout with buy-in installs faster because nobody is redesigning on the day.
• Schedule the work for a dry window before the operating season, so the cure is complete before the first barefoot day.
• Keep the colour references. A recoat years later should match the palette the neighbourhood knows.

For municipal parks and recreation departments planning spray park surface renewals across BC, send a photo of the pad and a postal code to office@squareonepaving.com, call 604-612-6209, or use the contact form. We come out, look, and put a written quote together.