Kidtopia
Playful child day-care centre in Amsterdam West
Amidst the dense urban environment of Amsterdam West, lies the playful world of Kidtopia: A child-daycare centre with grown up style. DUS architects designed a clear and lively interior that speaks both to children ánd parents and provides a comfortable work environment for the teachers. DUS smartly tweaked the stringent day-care legislations to create a special interior world: A curvy environment where stairs turn into slides and the director?s office is also a dollhouse, and where peek-a-boo holes allow children to spy at parents (or the other way around). In the inventive and open design, all details contribute to the overall tale.
comfortable curves
Kidtopia is located in ?the Pyramids?, a large mixed-use building in West Amsterdam. The confined almost square floor plan, and the strict day-care legislations (child / m2) forced DUS to meticulously shape all program- cautiously combining and adding functions, double using each available square meter. This ?shaping? resulted in a curvilinear hallway landscape that shapes all groups and allows for double use (such as sliding, watching film, reading, performing on stage) The group-rooms alongside the façades get plenty of daylight. In the middle is the kitchen, the heart from where all groups can be seen. Even the kitchen has a double function- it can transform into a tiny theatre whilst the stairwell that leads up to the directors? office also functions as small tribune.
bright white and green
The walls are finished with white vinyl wallpaper. This gives the interior a crisp and clean feel, and maximises the reflection of natural light inside. A continuous vinyl-wallpaper panelling in different green colours secures the lower parts of the walls from staining. This green graphic shows an abstracted landscape- transforming from trees to clouds to sea- and leaves plenty of room for ones own imagination.
peek-a boo!
The daycare centre is full of quirky details. Throughout the interior little 3D ?playhouses? are carved out of the walls. Inside one stairwell, a built in-periscope offers a gaze into another group-room. These direct views from one space to another enhance safety but also serve an educational aspect. The play-kitchen is directly facing the grown-up kitchen- so teacher and child can wash up together. 101 Little peek-a-boo windows (made of simple PVC tube and Plexiglas) add light and colour and a multitude of views for parent and child.
Client: Kidtopia
Program: 400m2 daycare centre existing of four groups
Location: Marcantilaan 499, Amsterdam, NL
Phase: Completion 2010
Contractor: MIMAR Nederland BV
Projectteam: Hedwig Heinsman, Hans Vermeulen, Martine de Wit, Laura de Graaff, Maja Gesar, Geoff Thompson
Photography: Ger van der Vlugt