Northend Nursery

Client: CABE and DFES
Awards: Competition win
Year: 2001
Value: £750,000
Detail Design: Northend Nursery

The design for the Neighbourhood Nursery is conceived to be a model nursery for the Neighbourhood Nurseries Programme - the provision of childcare across the country with a focus on disadvantaged communities.

The Neighbourhood Nusery is a new education building type formed as a landscape enclosure to create a miniature settlement for childrenand the community.

Northen Nusery - Detail Design

The nursery is set within a protective landscape enclosure formed of timber railway sleepers. The layout has three open plan spaces for baby, toddler and preschool play groups served by ancillary wings and all linked by a flexible central space. Each play space opens through fully openable galzed elevations into triangular courtyard gardens enclosed by the sleeper wall. Fabric canopies unfurl to protect the courtyards in poor weather.