Smigy (United Square)

Smigy at United Square is the rare basement playground with daylight in it. The room runs along a glass frontage, so the sand area — filled with hinoki wood beads rather than grit, which brush off clothes instead of clinging to them — sits in natural light, and children who would last ten minutes in a windowless basement stay in it far longer.

Across the rest of the five thousand square feet there is a ball pit with an LED slide running into it and a contraption overhead that gathers the balls up and drops them back down, a trampoline with an interactive screen to chase, a bouncy castle, and a vertical wall for building with bricks. The pretend-play corner goes further than the usual toy kitchen: a dress-up table, cooking sets, and a model cow to be milked with a calf to feed. A party room off the main floor can be booked.

The people on the floor are the strongest part of it. They play with children instead of watching from the side, and they tidy as they go. Bring socks for everyone going in. It fills early in the school holidays, so a ten o’clock arrival on a holiday morning may already find it busy; a weekday morning is when the room is at its best, half empty with the light coming through the glass. It is built for children roughly two to six.