White Hutchinson Designs Easter Seals Child Care Play Gardens
The new Easter Seals Arizona Child Care Center will be located in heart of downtown Phoenix in the ground level of an existing parking garage. It will serve 140 children from toddlers to 5 year-olds. White Hutchinson was selected to design all the outdoor play areas.
The preschool play garden will include a running maze, hiding bush, children's gardening, art area, riding track in a bamboo forest, sand play and a play structure. The toddler playground area will include a running berm, water tables, riding corral and art area. There will also be an outdoor dramatic play area, a construction area and a zero-depth water playground area.
Vicki Stoecklin, WHLLG's Education and Child Development Director who overseas the design of child care projects, said the project presented many unusual design challenges:
- Some of the areas will be under parking decks, presenting lighting
and acoustic challenges, which needed to be addressed in the design.
- The program will have a high percentage of children with a wide range
of disabilities, requiring highly accessible design solutions for not
only equipment, but also loose parts-more than required by ADA. ADA
design standards often fail to address special needs of children with
impaired motor skills, such as ones who use walkers rather than wheelchairs.
They also do not address selection of loose parts and manipulatives.
- To make the play areas usable in the hot Phoenix climate requires that the outdoor areas have plentiful shade, air circulation and even mist cooling.
The Center is scheduled for a fall 2001 opening.
