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Objective

Working with faculty and staff from the Baby Gator Child Development Center and the College of Education at the University of Florida, we developed a program and design for a new state-of-the-art facility based on environmental design and child development research. The current center is 8,000 square feet and houses 130 children between the ages of one and five. The new facility will house 250 students, ranging in age from six weeks to five years of age, within an area of 40,000 square feet and expanded outdoor space.

Strategy

The new facility will meet the needs of the children and staff by providing programmed space to support expanded services to the community with more research space, a new commercial kitchen, an indoor play area, more observation rooms and a butterfly and vegetable garden.

Through research tools such as structured interviews of staff, surveys of families, and observation of children at the center, a functional program and schematic design was developed, allowing for preliminary cost estimating for planning and developing the business case.

Results

The evidence-based conceptual design for Baby Gator is founded on the fundamental mission of Baby Gator and the research that provides the best strategies for the design of healthy environments where children learn and thrive.

Children grow and learn in a safe and healthy environment with a caring and attentive staff of well trained early childhood educators. Curriculum is designed to encourage children to experience the world around them. Baby Gator addresses the needs of all children and fosters growth in social, behavioral, cognitive, and physical skills and early literacy skills. The conceptual design of the new facility provides the physical environment for children to develop in a healthy productive learning environment.

The new facility will provide the space required per child with expanded areas for classrooms, research space, a state of the art kitchen and dining hall, an indoor play area, observation rooms, and gardens for flowers, vegetables and butterflies. Since 2005, the center has employed an in-house chef to cook for the children and to educate the children on the types of foods they eat while emphasizing healthy eating. As a research and development center, Baby Gator has collaborative relationships with the College of Education, College of Allied Health and the College of Music to enrich the education and experience of all the Baby Gators.

Expertise Provided: Operational Visioning + Goal Setting, Strategic Planning, Space Allocation + Utilization Analysis, Operational + Functional Programming, Architectural Programming, Establishing Design Criteria, Evidence-Based Design Consulting