I think that's a bike stand.

Are you kidding? That looks pretty similar to the Enterprise bridge in TNG. I absolutely did star trek make believe.

All they need is a giant LCD in front of me showing random images of Romulan ships and I'd make due with this sort of design.

So I looked this up. It's the viewing/sitting/fidgeting area for an interactive art installation at the San Francisco airport called the Butterfly Wall. As a kids area, yeah it's still a bit sterile and eye-rollingly "sophisticated," but they left out the actual attraction, a tank-like thing with very satisfying-looking hand cranks that raise little goassamer-winged mechanical butterflies that than then descend like fancy versions of the parachute men you'd get from the dentist because he won't keep candy. I've seen tonally similar things at a dozen different parks, museums, and botanical gardens, and this one is actually kinda nice in that being indoors it can be a little more delicate.

pics

As others have said, most kids areas I've seen are much less ST:TNG-coded, and even SFO has others that are "better." My kid is through the "every random play area must be experienced" phase, but she's traveled a lot, and we've seen tons of aviation themed mini-playgrounds and open spaces with primary-colored benches along the walls.

Pet peeve time: this kind of cherry-picked observation is weaponized laziness, the social media equivalent of stand-ups thinking it's clever to muse, "why isn't the whole plane made of the black box stuff?!"

IMO the people who design children's play areas are generally not that great at it. I say that as a preschool teacher.

what even is that thing on the left? gravity coil???

Any part of an airport can be a play area if you're creative enough.

They know how much children love sharp angles.

I've seen a few airports with children's play areas and none of them looked like whatever this is.

Either way I wouldn't want to touch them, guaranteed corona

I remember seeing a pretty cool one when i was in Brussels. Its was also completely walled off, off limits for non staff adults so parents could actually leave their kids there in safety while doing grown up stuff.

Looked it up,

The one at the airport near here has this model plane thing that you can go inside and has slides for exits. It's pretty sweet.

“Ensign Crusher, engage”

Looks like they thought they were doing an art installation. I'm sure lots of meetings and work-lunches occurred.

One of the airports in Warsaw has fidget spinners bolted to the wall 😭 even that’s outdone this.

There’s actually a good one in St. Louis. It even has a cockpit that you can explore too, and a control tower.

Some do OK

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UypAQYTUY6A

You were allowed to leave your parents side at the airport?

The one at Boston Logan is pretty good. All soft padded surfaces and everything.

I'm sure they have to work within ridiculous bureaucratic constraints