Goodstart Early Learning Rostrevor

Project lead; Area Planning; sketch design, design development, documentation. Brown Falconer 2018-2019

New 2-storey 89 place childcare centre in the leafy foothills of Morialta Reserve.

The site is in an area with a mix of residential design dating roughly from the 1950s.  For some years now there has been ongoing redevelopment with many cases of homes being sold and the blocks being split into two.  This results in a variety of residential styles dating from the 1950s through to today.

With no dominating era to draw on or particular architectural character, we’ve looked to maintain a modern residential feel to the building with the choice of materials and window arrangements.  The form of the building has been segmented into smaller parts to align with the residential scale of the area. 

Three cladding materials are in play; the most significant being horizontally laid ‘weatherboards’ (thinking Weathertex Classic Smooth) around a large horizontal window, emphasising the horizontality of this face.  The window serves to create a window seat on the inside.  The extruded frame on the outside provides shade from the summer sun. 

 Two narrow windows are to the right of the main face.  Cladding with vertical lines (thinking Weathertex Weathergroove Smooth 150mm for this) is used for this section to highlight the verticality of the stairwell that they serve and to balance the horizontal lines adjacent.

 Between and around these two faces is brickwork, a robust interlude around the lighter elements and grey / white tones comfortably ensconce the building within the beautifully treed eucalypt environment.