New Update: Little Lane Eaglemont

The Eaglemont Early Learning Centre facility draws on current research that outlines the importance of outdoor play for creativity, physicality, problem solving and intellectual development during a child’s early years. The facility prioritises open-air, external spaces through the design, and creates a world class vertically integrated childcare centre for up to 202 children.

The facility is further a culmination of Milton Architect’s investigation into the importance of Outdoor Rooms in a child’s experience of the built environment. An Outdoor Room can be a simple as a child’s sketch, with walls to enclose space, the sky as the ceiling, and trees and plants as central points of focus. The design further creates a series of voids, terraced play, and interconnected levels to allow seamless vertical integration and promotes the idea of the built environment as a unified play space. This is further intensified by sections of the outdoor area that are raised to create inclines and undulating surfaces that will help children develop vital motor skills and create simple challenges that aid cognitive learning.

New Update: Little Lane Drummoyne

The proposal for a new childcare centre that provides a unique approach to adaptive reuse and educational architecture has been approved in Drummoyne.

Located at the 1,810 sqm site of the Drummoyne Reservoir on Rawson Avenue, the proposal will accommodate 159 children and 30 staff, and delivers a new, industry-leading facility by Mike Wu and Shan Kuo, founders and owner-operators of Little Lane early learning centres.

Wu, a second-generation childcare practitioner and Kuo, who has a Masters in Early Childhood Education, have an ambitious vision: to develop a new standard in childcare while retaining an accessible price point for working families.

Constructed in 1913, and de-commissioned in 1960’s, the Drummoyne Reservoir is now listed on the State Heritage Register. With its large-elevated, steel-plated water tank supported on a circular concrete colonnade, the towering structure creates a landmark site of significant heritage value.

Wu and Kuo have collaborated with Melbourne based firm Milton Architects for the adaptive reuse of the site with alterations and additions proposed to the Reservoir and the construction of a new building to east of the site, with childcare facilities being spread across both structures.

“Through the design of this Early Learning Centre, we actively sought to maintain and respond to the heritage significance of the Reservoir while also using these intriguing spaces created by the Reservoir to encourage new perspectives and passive learning from the children’s surrounds,” said Stephen Milton, Principal of Milton Architects.

Great care has been taken through the design to retain the structural steel bracing at the base of the Reservoir with many elements interspersed throughout the classroom facilities at ground level. In this way, these angled elements are not only a statement of the past, but also an element to instigate imagination and learning for young minds.

“The extent of adaptation proposed is also, in my view, reasonable and considered [and the proposal has] approached adaptation with respect and sensitivity,” noted Commissioner Horton in his judgement.