When observing early walking pre-school toddlers, it is easy to appreciate that in excess of 2,300 steps per hour are accumulated, with children walking more than 2.6 miles per day within a playroom setting. It is therefore difficult to imagine how this energy and movement is accommodated, when minimum space standards for new Early Years Centres are applied. 

This led us to develop an alternative approach for East Dunbartonshire Council where area metrics set the upper limit on project value only. 

Focusing on an ‘experience based’ education we carefully considered the type of spaces that are needed to support a pre-school curriculum, whether these spaces need to be indoors, in sheltered enclosure or outdoors, along with key adjacencies, with a view to generating a creative landscape for pupils to inhabit and explore. 

The outcome is a facility that offers a 100% increase in useable sheltered floor space compared to traditional centres for the same budget. By rationalising the true requirements for indoor space to the absolute minimum legal registered floor area to comply with the Care Commission we reallocated budget to create a semi-indoor, semi-outdoor vibrant and dynamic courtyard. Fully undercover and protected from the elements, this space offers children the opportunity to run, jump and explore, outwith the playroom setting, in fresh air. Ramps allow pupils to run onto the roof of the fully insulated modular playrooms and experience an elevated view over the nursery.

The scale of this space allows Early Years staff to create a multitude of experiences for children, offering tents and tipis as reading corners, indoor planting areas that form small winter gardens, material areas to allow construction, water play and craft skills to be taught on a far larger scale and growing areas where soft fruit and vegetables can be planted. 

Principally however, the courtyard is an active space where children can move freely. The open sides to the enclosure allow the pupils to experience differing weather patterns, whether it be rain drops filling the space with noise or sunlight casting dramatic shadows across the ground, whilst also allowing noise of pupils to be heard across the surrounding neighbourhood, integrating the building at the heart of the local community.