Margaret Cribb Child Care Centre Site Visit
Join ACA (Qld / NT) on a site tour of a new UQ child care centre, which is founded upon the principles of Reggio Emilia.
Designed by dwp, the Margaret Cribb Child Care Centre at the University of Queensland (UQ) is founded upon the Reggio Emilia approach and is influenced by the world’s leading child care examples.
Reggio Emilia is an educational philosophy focused on preschool and primary education. The approach to educating and nurturing young children places the natural development of children, as well as the close relationships that they share with their environment, at the centre of its philosophy. In this approach, there is a belief that children have rights and should be given opportunities to develop their potential. ‘Influenced by this belief, the child is beheld as beautiful, powerful, competent, creative, curious, and full of potential and ambitious desires.’
The organisation of the physical environment is crucial to Reggio Emilia’s early childhood program and is often referred to as the child’s ‘third teacher’. Major aims in the planning of new spaces and the remodelling of old ones include the integration of each classroom with the broader centre, and the centre itself with the surrounding community. The importance of the environment lies in the belief that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments that support ‘complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing ideas’.
Situated on a prominent site on Sir Fred Schonell Drive, the Margaret Cribb Child Care Centre is not only a new Reggio Emilia Centre, it is part of the gateway entry experience to the University of Queensland. The site is located within the ‘parklands’ of the University and Forgan Smith View Corridor in the UQ master plan.
The design seeks to address the pedagogy by making the built environment the third teacher for the children. The built form has an inverted presence opening up to a central courtyard, while its external recycled timber facade provides the backdrop to address the existing ‘boulevard’ along the road reserve of Sir Fred Schonell Drive. The open courtyard is surrounded by external learning space on a timber deck verandah, accessible to children for all age groups. dwp’s design response is a one-storey building that blends into the landscape and complements the existing suburban fabric. The project is being built by Buildcorp and is due for completion in September 2017.
When
3.45pm for 4pm to 6pm
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Where
Margaret Cribb Child Care Centre, Sir Fred Schonell Drive, St Lucia
Parking: Car park next to the site or street parking.
What
Presentation and light refreshments
Dress
Business + PPE required
CPD
1 informal CPD point
Cost
Members: $55 p/p
Non-Members $66 p/p (incl. GST)
RSVP
To qld@aca.org.au by Friday, 18 August 2017