Kids Cove Early Learning Centre, Albany
By Smith Architects
Based on a similar brief to the previous centre, the new one was to house 125 children with good indoor-outdoor flow and plenty of natural light and WOW-factor. To achieve this we created a central hallway and brought natural light in from above to animate the main entry with sunlight and shadows. The central classrooms are fully glazed where they connect onto this hallway, providing them with maximum natural daylighting at the rear and views of the comings and goings in the centre for the children. The two other classrooms are glazed on 3 sides and only 7m deep to ensure good daylight penetration from outside.
Staff spaces are arranged along the car park side with linear windows for light and ventilation, concealed partly on the outside by vertical louvres which we coloured differently on each side. This allows the building to take on a different colour depending on which side it is viewed from.
Conceptually, the solid walls of the building are grouped so as to represent simple ‘timber’ boxes holding up the roof, the glass simply infilling between the boxes. Hence both internally and externally the walls are clad with timber panelling.
Internally, we designed all of the fixed and loose furniture to ensure a coherent concept and provide maximum aesthetic and functional impact. Whilst the loose units look visually appealing, the pieces have much functionality, being both storage furniture and room dividers. Within the taller units are a mini kitchen, a stage, a dress up area, as well as storage. The separate pieces combine to make mini-amphitheatre spaces for the children to come together for story time, but they can all be separated and reconfigured to divide up the room into any number of smaller areas easily as each is on lockable castors. Velcroed vinyl cushions also come apart easily and can be made into separate seating, or better – built into castles or dens!
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Kids Cove Early Learning Centre, Albany
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Smith Architects is an award-winning international architectural practice creating beautiful human spaces that are unique, innovative and sustainable through creativity, refinement, and care.
Phil and Tiffany Smith established the practice in 2007. We have spent more than two decades striving to understand what makes some buildings more attractive than others, in the anticipation that it can help us design better buildings.
Recent advances in neuroscience and psychology have enabled scientists to unlock some of the reasons why we find certain works of art, objects and environments more attractive than others, and at the heart of it is simple Darwinian theory: if we find something attractive we will be more likely to choose that thing over another – be it a painting, a piece of music, a landscape or even a building.
At Smith Architects, we use these learning to inform our designs, striving to create beauty in everything we do, in the belief that beautiful spaces create better environments for human beings or ‘beautiful human spaces’.
We carefully integrates architectural, landscape, interior and furniture design skills to ensure projects achieve an holistic integrity that meets our client’s needs. At the core of our design rigour, we believe that modern, sustainable, research-based design delivers a successful project with innovative solutions that work for our clients.
Our Auckland, New Plymouth, and Arrowtown offices design and deliver projects ranging from refurbishments to new-builds; from domestic scale to urban master plans; from conception to completion. Our experience covers a broad range of typologies – masterplans, mixed-use schemes, residential; offices; cultural; educational; healthcare and childcare.
We work with a diverse client base, including developers, private, government and charities and have experience of working with multiple stakeholders on challenging sites around the world.
We are a member of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC), Site Safe New Zealand, and the Sustainability Business Network.
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