78 | ARCHITECTURE Smith Architects T T Virginia Wright Education sector work proves rewarding The Gaia Earth Forest Preschool was another more recent collaboration between the Singhs and Smith Architects. “So, he bought an adjoining house with a garden which is now the carpark, and you walk from there about 300 metres through the trees to the building so that whole area is the playground.” Phil Smith is an architect and Tiffany Smith an accountant, so when in 2005 they made the move to New Zealand, from London where they’d met years before, they decided to put their complementary skills to good use and established Smith Architects. “I’d done quite a bit of education work in the UK so came with that expertise, and we found this niche with Early Childhood Centres. I think everyone here just assumed they were converted houses, so it was almost an untouched industry as it were, and quite a big one,” says Phil. He says they like doing education work because there’s often a social outcome with it if you get it right, and it can really make a difference in deprived areas, especially back in the UK. Here the education sector is largely government driven except for Early Childhood which is a lightly regulated private industry with the creative freedom that allows. The main driver for an outcome becomes the owner’s concept and the architectural skills that turn it into a living, breathing Early Childhood Centre, which is where Smith Architecture comes in. It might be a building in Northland designed to look like a hill, completely buried with grass over the roof where the kids can go and (safely) play, or a building like the award-winning Chrysalis Early Childhood Centre in Avondale, designed to make the most of the site by wrapping around its two mature protected trees. “We couldn’t build under the trees so it kind of hugs them, and it leaves the area beneath the trees for the playground,” says Phil. Owned by Darius and Nakeeta Singh, that was the first of their Early Childhood Centres built around the concept of nature-based play which over time they have developed into a curriculum which underpins their Gaia philosophy, Phil explains. “Teaching kids about natural earth sciences and sustainable principles from a really young age basically.” The Gaia Earth Forest Preschool was another more recent collaboration between the Singhs and Smith Architects, together with playground designers Playscape who were one of the first to take up nature-based play. It was awarded Excellence at the Property Council Awards, won Silver at New Zealand’s Commercial Project Awards 2023, Bronze in the Nation’s Best Design Awards held by the Design Institute of New Zealand. “It’s different from the moment you arrive,” explains Phil. “Darius already had the idea, and a real estate agent rang him up to see if it was what he was looking for. “Basically, it’s a 500-year-old native forest that sits behind a subdivision they did in Manurewa years ago. “There was just enough room on the existing site, at the end of a single driveway running into the middle of the forest, for a preschool but you couldn’t get a carpark in. “So, he bought an adjoining house with a garden which is now the carpark, and you walk from there about 300 metres through the trees to the building so that whole area is the playground.” nature plaY spaces www.playscape.co.nz hello@playscape.co.nz 0800 757 555 WE DESIGN AND BUILD NATIONWIDE Within that forest playground Playscape have woven a bush walk with things like a Moa nest, bridges over the streams and play ‘nodes’ for the children to stop and enjoy, all designed to playground standards. Phil puts it in his top three of the more than 100 Early Childhood Centres he’s now designed from Northland to Invercargill, and it seems he’s not alone. Despite being invisible from the road it’s got a two-year waiting list of children keen to enjoy the nature-based environment that resulted from the synergy between the architect’s philosophy of design, the Singh’s philosophy of teaching and Playscape’s expertise in nature-based play.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=