KEEFE
CHOOI
THE COMMUNITY DAY CARE
Reconnecting the child and the community
We tend to think of childcare centres as high-security and isolated facilities, but with this project, its aim is to design an early childhood centre that brings the community into the bigger picture, finding opportunities for engagement between the community and the children using a arts-based pedagogy for teaching. This is in response to its site, Sengkang, which is ironically like an urban sprawl. And like a sprawl, it creates a disconnect. Our dense urban fabric disconnects us from our environment, family and the community. These are not optimal conditions for a child’s upbringing, forming my project’s mission to bring in the community.
The project focuses on cultivating two interactions: inter- and intra-community. The former refers to children interacting with the public and vie versa, while the latter refers to interactions amongst the children. These are exhibited in the classroom clusters, which is then proliferated throughout the site.In all, this centre's goal is to be able to bridge the public and private, reconnecting and engaging the children and community to provide a more conducive environment for growing up.
April 2020
CLASSROOM CLUSTER
The classroom cluster is the culmination of the various typical learning spaces and is then proliferated throughout the site. The design strategy for the cluster includes combining the classrooms with the gallery room, and creating a seamless connection throughout to ensure interaction.
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GALLERY ROOMS
As the public-facing rooms of the classroom clusters, they feature different art forms that the public can appreciate and interact with. Some of these rooms provide visual interaction, while some can be entered by the public, becoming new community spaces.
