In the 400-square-meter outdoor area of the company-owned daycare center of a Berlin tech company, operated by “Fröbel-Kindergärten,” 65 children can immerse themselves in a wild world of play. Even in winter, you can guess what takes place here in summer. Children need order and structure to grow up in safety. But they also need nature and wildness to develop, to go their own way, to test themselves and to create things. In the daycare center, the children follow this path: from urban order indoors to wild nature outdoors. The daycare center is divided into different zones that describe this path: “Into the wild”.
Client — Tech-Company Berlin
Size — 400 sqm outdoor space for 65 children
Services — LPH 1-8, outdoor space design
Completion — 01/2019
Location — Berlin
Nature at your fingertips – not just a topic at this daycare center, but concrete foliage! A barefoot path trains motor skills and is a haptic experience. In the educational garden, vegetables and herbs are grown with the children. Prairie grass gives a sense of vastness and brings the wilderness into the big city. Polygonal playhouses form a village, here you can hide and the houses from the outside always change.
The design axes from the interior are continued in the garden. A network of dynamic surfaces, paths, niches is formed. The nature is co-designed and at the same time supported in its free wildness. Self-determined and own, as well as the children in their creativity. Small elevations, waves and obstacles train motor skills and are simply fun. Throughout the outdoor area, there are opportunities for movement and experience, tailored to the different age groups.
