An intercultural creative daycare center in the heart of Berlin, in the middle of Neukölln. The first floor unit was renovated and turned into a place for children to play and be creative. The children are invited to actively shape their environment, to appropriate it and to fill it with their different cultural experiences. The design provides a framework for the children’s pictures, collections of materials, installations and collages. Clarity meets creative chaos and supports it in a positive sense.
Client — dtz gemeinnützige GmbH
Size — 236 sqm for 27 children
Services — LPH 1-8, interior design, funding application
Completion — 01/2020
Location — Berlin
The platforms in the group rooms are clearly defined colored islands. They offer retreat possibilities, storage space for mattresses, and are also designed as a small stage for the children’s plays or circus acts. Sleeping, hiding, climbing, romping, presenting – the children play freely and impartially on the fixtures. Details such as openings in the pedestal, expand the possibilities for interpretation. House, castle, ship or knight’s castle – abstract shapes allow children’s imaginations to run wild. High-quality materials, such as colored oiled wood and real goat hair carpets, create an environment that gives children a natural haptic experience.
Viewing windows and small niches with colorful accents allow an insight and view into the daily happenings of the daycare center and pick up on the color concept. The interior windows create a connection not only in the spatial sense. Visual axes to other rooms, make it easier for children to arrive at the facility and reinforce the feeling of belonging and security by allowing them to view life in the daycare center independently at all times.
A clear floor plan opens up the kindergarten rooms: the open checkroom with seating elements and dressing aids extends the pedagogical space and serves as an additional play area for the children. The exchange between parents and educators can also take place here without getting lost in the crowds. The nearly 25-meter-long hallway is covered with wood and thus becomes an exhibition space for children’s art. An integrated weaving frame challenges the children to weave in found objects and thus to experience different materials haptically and is at the same time a motor training.
The connecting element between the two group rooms is a workshop. Mobile shelves can be converted into studio walls or room dividers by simply turning them. In the style of Arno Stern, a so-called “painting place” can be created here – a studio for immersed work. The mobile shelving system not only allows for the creation of a studio workshop, but also for many other scenarios, such as a theater stage, a video screening, or the use as a freely cleared movement space. Multiple use is, especially for smaller facilities, an enormous space gain.
FLOORPLAN
