The building provides a new 45 place children’s day nursery as part of an existing village primary school. There is a separate residential development adjacent.
The scheme is designed to replace an existing nursery facility within the school and increase capacity for both the nursery and primary school age children by refunctioning the existing nursery.
The proposed nursery is located within an existing car park surrounding by existing school buildings on one side and mature trees to the others, all of which are to be retained. It needs to function independently from the school so is detached and has its own entrance and outdoor play spaces.
The nursery is orientated so the main entrance is to the north-west, at the closest point to the new school car park and drop off area with an enclosed buggy store adjacent which shares a projecting canopy.
As well as the entrance and glazed lobby, the public side of the building contains an office, staff room and ancillary accommodation for passive security, whereas the children’s rooms are on the private sides facing north-east and south-east.
There are three age group rooms: babies, toddlers and pre-school, and each opens up to an outdoor play space which is part covered by a canopy to be usable in most weather. The toddlers and pre-school share an outdoor play space which leads to an existing wooded area called ‘the glade’ which the school has been using for many years for external play and discovery. Their classrooms include a bifold door so they can be linked together when required.
The babies have their own external play area which is part covered by a large mature oak tree. It is separated from the other children’s play space by soft landscaping to maintain a peaceful and quiet area.
The brief was to provide a welcoming building that is suited to a countryside setting whilst remaining contemporary. It is single storey topped with a green roof to add to the biodiversity of the scheme. There is a generous rooflight to the centre to ensure natural light is available to all of the spaces.
By being single storey, the building does not compete in scale with the existing Edwardian brick and rather austere school buildings adjacent.
The elevations are clad in vertical timber with a rhythm that is defined by projecting cladding set at varying distances apart around the perimeter which creates a robust and textured envelope to the building. The cladding is smoother facing onto the children’s play spaces where the rhythm is defined by the fenestration pattern emphasised by projecting timber cladding.