We are so honoured to have won an Architecture Award for Educational Architecture at the NSW Chapter AIA Awards. Also we were humbled to have had the project nominated for the NSW Premier’s Prize and shortlisted for the Sustainable Architecture category.
Jury citation
“Camperdown Childcare creates a warm and engaging learning and care facility within the surprising environs of a former industrial warehouse. Aptly harmonious, the interplay between scale, shelter and material allows a space where a child’s ability for imagination and discovery is nurtured.
A series of child-scaled ‘houses’ line the southern wall, this facade stepping outwards towards the rear of the warehouse to accommodate the varying functions for different ages of children. A low ceiling to these spaces provides enclosure and protection, with openings to temper light, warmth and noise as required, as well as being a strong datum within the warehouse structure.
These playrooms look onto a combined open circulation and communal play area or ‘public street’, portions of which have been opened to allow daylight – and rain – into the space, whilst in other areas the roof is retained in its original form to provide the prescribed protection from sun exposure. This measured variation in enclosure presents an intriguing blurring of internal and external spaces.
Innovative detailing employs a simple palette of robustly finished timbers which bring warmth and economy to the construction, allowing for site assembly of timber joinery as well as potential disassembly and re-use.
This is a delightful example of an environment for learning. The subtle inclusion of elemental shapes and platonic forms conjure the playspaces of Aldo van Eyck. As a whole however, this is the making of a building which in its nature could be momentary, as it could be enduring.”
