Irish Times, Thursday 31st July 2003

Clever crèche for child's play

The Architects of a custom-built crèche in Dublin 15 got down to child level to create a safe a safe building that's fun to be in, writes Emma Cullinan

Designing to suit the needs of those who will actually use the building makes for successful architecture. So in the case if a new crèche in Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, Box Architecture had to get down to child level.

The result is a building that plays with differing scales, from double-height spaces to tiny nooks, and has fun with elements, for instance, by incorporating small seats into timber and glass walls.

At a time when many children are educated in Portakabins and other makeshift classrooms, it is amazing that one private enterprise in Dublin 15 has built its own school - well, crèche.

Mary and John Hale of Klever Kids cater for the high-end of the early years caring business and decided to build from scratch so that they could have a building that came well within the stricter guidelines concerning the safety and robustness of childcare facilities. The new building caters for 65 children split into three groups: babies, "wobblers" and toddlers.

The building has been carefully thought out, to include child-friendly details. Access to the garden is through a covered paved area so that kids can play outside, whatever the weather. Internally the building is entered through a double-height room which serves as a relief area for all of the three rooms off it - so different "classes" can take it in turns to come out and have a run around. Each of the three classrooms has its own "services" area - robust, brick blocks with nappy changing facilities
Toilets, and so on - so that the children never have to leave the watchful eye of their carers.

All of the walls have many openings in them, of varying widths and heights, to allow constant observation between one space and another.
Low windows are recessed to enable children to sit in small cubby-holes and in the toddlers' room, small booths have been created by the front window in which the children can sit and play - and escape the rabble in the main part of their classroom.

The many stairways to the first floor sleeping and play areas are designed to seem like a maze to the children while allowing easy access to all areas of the building and staff.

The child-centred approach has also been taken in the roof lights - which are of various shapes and locations within each room to allow a different play of light during different seasons and times of day, something it is hoped will catch a child's attention.

Despite all of the windows and roof lights, the building isn't bathed in light - probably the fact that the building is in a tight suburban site surrounded by other properties and because the internal brickwork and much of the timber (mahogany) is rather dark.

Apart from their lack of light-bouncing ability, the variegated bricks are cleverly chosen, as fingerprints couldn't possibly show up on them, and the cement is flush with the bricks to cut down on head-banging sharp, corners.

The internal bricks, and the exposed breeze blocks in the service areas, do make for a robust look - rather municipal in the way that larger schools are. But the aim of Box Architecture founded in 1997 by David Dwyer and Gary Mongey, is, as they put it, to "use simple technology to achieve inspirational aesthetics in the built form", and that's what they've done here. Something that works well when, as is often the case, it's necessary to marry considered design with a tight budget.

This building also has its beautifully clever touches that show real thought on the part of the architects. Despite the fact that 65 very young children inhabit it the 464 sq m (5,000 sq ft) building, there isn't an air of chaos.

As I leave the building proprietor John Hale is attempting to put together a plastic caterpillar tunnel.

He's struggling with disparities between the instructions and the pieces of plastic before him. Architect Gary Mongey offers to help and clicks the caterpillar's various sections into place straight away. He's obviously got the hang of child- centred construction.