Description

Developed for the Greater London Borough of Merton, this 90 place nursery is part of a larger 500 million GBP ‘Sure Start’ programme being developed throughout England at present. It is unusual to have such a high budget for a childcare building, however, a lot of area has been squeezed from what is essentially a 1,400 GBP per square metre construction budget. When the commission was won in 2003, the development team approached its procurement as something of a research project. Working in tandem with structural engineers Arup, the architects have adopted a largely pre-engineered system build approach to the needs of the childcare community. The result is a highly engineered kit of parts which were essentially bolted together on site having been pre-fabricated in a factory, thus reducing costs and saving construction time. It is a system which could, with a bit of tweaking, be adapted to other sites. The engineer describes it as like a giant Lego kit, an appropriate concept for a nursery.

The prevailing site condition, noisy on the east side and quiet on the west, suggested the clear linear layout with offices facing the road creating an acoustic and visual barrier and children’s spaces at the back. They overlook some run-down allotments which are nevertheless valuable green space and which will eventually be transformed into a wild garden. The building is set up as a series of interconnected timber pavilions distinguishable from the front by panels of different coloured glass in the tall windows, a colour coding which is carried through into the play spaces behind. If the front is closed and discreet, the rear is the opposite. It is predominantly glazed with timber louvers opening onto an external timber deck, a sort of colonnade between the activity areas and the outside play spaces, the interface between the safety of the interior and the challenges of the great outdoors. Sun sweeps around the elevations and filters through the louvers, the quality of light and shadow is one of the many distinctive features of this simple but inspired building.

Cladding panels are of Douglas fir, chosen for their durability and weathering qualities. The almost filigree structure gives the building a delicacy which is very unusual for a children’s environment. There are touches of quality throughout, but is subtle and refined, an architecture which respects the sensitivities of young children, providing a neutral backdrop for the drama and colour of their own activities. The need to protect this elegant structure with high metal fencing and banks of CCTV cameras is one of the unfortunate drawbacks of the times in which we live (the previous childcare building was burnt down). The temptation to treat this as a fortress has been resisted, however, and given time, the community element of the building will assume the original intention, to provide a focus for the families of this deprived urban community.

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Originally published in: Mark Dudek, Schools and Kindergartens: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2015.