AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO DESIGNING CHILDCARE FACILITIES

It is important when choosing a firm to do both your indoor and outdoor childcare design that you understand the process that creates the end product. The end product can only be as good as the process used to create it. Early childhood practitioners are provided with little training in understanding the design process. Design companies often approach the task every differently.

White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group has developed a unique approach to designing environments for young children. We use a team approach, lead by our Education & Child Development Director, Vicki Stoecklin, who has extensive experience in both children's learning and play environment design and the operation of early childhood facilities. Other team members include experts in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, acoustics, lighting, and value engineering. Our approach follows a model called concurrent design. Our guiding principle is that architecture is not at the center of the process, but rather the process is driven by the center's program goals and the needs of staff, children and parents.

In a traditional architectural process, the architects are the center of the process and the child development person, if there is one included, is on the outside in a limited role. In our design process, Vicki oversee all aspects of the design process. Her expertise in understanding teachers' and parents' needs, along with how children use space, compliments those of the architect, interior designer and landscape architect. Designers rarely have knowledge of child development and the operation of a high quality childcare facility. Vicki's role is to guide them to create and choose design solutions that meet the childcare center's program and curriculum goals and are also functional, practical and cost effective.

Another problem with the traditional architectural design process is that the childcare director and teachers are often turned to for their expertise by the architects. Rarely do the people who know children and their needs know how to translate their teaching and administrative skills into the design of space and the language used by architects and other designers. Most childcare practitioners are not able to offer the best design suggestions because they do not have a broad enough design experience base and are not skilled in design. Due to being hampered by their existing paradigms, practitioners may be unaware of many solutions and quality design standards, or may not be able to understand the downside of a particular solution.

Our team approach is also different from other design firms because we use a concurrent approach. The traditional design process is sequential like a relay race. The architect grabs the baton from the client, does the site and floor plan and passes the baton to the structural engineer. The structural engineer finishes their job and passes the work to a long line of specialists who, one by one creates the lighting, electrical, mechanical systems and interior design. At the end of the process, the director and teachers are faced with trying to fit equipment in the space and adapt the space to fit their needs. One of the big problems in this sequential approach is that each stage squeezes the stage after it, often closing off options that could have improved quality, reduced costs and sped up construction. The needs of teachers, children and parents often get lost by becoming subordinate to the technical requirements of design, rather than being the drivers of the process. In this approach the individual designers do the best with what has been handed to them, but the end product becomes compromised.

Our concurrent design approach pulls together all the experts who design the facility and those who operate it at the same time. Everyone jumps into the sandbox at once with specialists from many different areas participating as members of a multidisciplinary, cross-functional team from the very beginning. Vicki's lead role assures that program goals, curriculum, children's needs, staff needs and parents' needs remain at the forefront and drive the concurrent design process. Other issues that need to be examined at the front end of the process, prior to designing the physical space, are furniture and equipment needs and layouts, operational issues and operating costs. Everything impacts everything.

Another unique aspect of our design approach is paying significant attention to acoustics, lighting and universal design. Children make noise. Research shows that high levels of background noise adversely affects learning, especially for children with hearing loss or fluid in their ears, which covers a large population of preschool children. An acoustical engineer is part of our team to assure that the environment will comply with quality acoustical standards. Lighting is also important. Research has shown the negative impact of certain types of artificial lighting on children's learning and behavior. Environments for infants have very unique lighting requirements. Likewise, research has shown the beneficial impact on maximizing nature light in the classroom. Both acoustics and lighting solutions are given a top priority at the very beginning of the design process rather than looked at later when many design options will be closed. Following universal design principals assures maximum usability by all children. The American Disabilities Act (ADA) has certain standards that must be adhered to, but they do not assure usability by many children with disabilities. Vicki's expertise with children's universal design assures that the environments we design meet the needs of all children.

Our approach to the outdoor space is different from that of other designers. We consider the outdoor environment to be an extension of the classroom and to be far more complex that just a place for some manufactured equipment. Our firm has extensive experience in developing outdoor play environments that include nature as part of the play element, are integrated into the classroom and support curriculum goals. We call these outdoor spaces "discovery play gardens" to differential them from the paradigm of just manufactured equipment. We design the outdoor space simultaneously with the design of the building to assure the best use of the site and building layouts and to assure that the indoors and outdoors will function as an integrated whole.

An integrated, concurrent design approach headed by a child development and education expert is the best way to develop a high quality childcare center where the physical environment meets the needs of staff, students, children, parents and the community. This approach also assures that the end product will reflect the very best practices in early childhood education and facility design.

If you are planning to develop or renovate a childcare facility or a playground, give Vicki Stoecklin a call at +1.816.931-1040 or send her an e-mail to learn more about our design services.