Hobsons Bay City Council
Posted under: The Newport Gardens Early Years Centre is a multipurpose community facility that provides Early Years Services to the children and families of Hobsons Bay. The services and activities at the centre include a kindergarten, long day care, maternal and child health, playgroup, toy library, regular user groups and early childhood intervention and family support services. The centre comprises a single storey building that wraps around a courtyard providing a central play area for the children; a southern woodland area for chickens and guinea pigs; a toy library playground and a 40 space car park. The facility was jointly funded by Hobson Bay City Council ($4.4m) and State Government ($1.0m) and is built on land leased from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD).
2. Description of project attaining excellence
2.1Assessment Criteria
2.1.1 Project Objectives
In August 2008, consistent with the State Government’s Blueprint for Early Childhood Development and School Reform, which encouraged new linkages between early childhood services and schools, Hobsons Bay City
Council explored the development of an integrated early years facility with DEECD on the site of, and adjacent to, the newly established Newport Gardens Primary School. Positive discussion and enthusiasm by all parties led to the planning, design and construction of the Newport Gardens Early Years Centre which delivers a range of early years’ services from a single location.
As part of the development, the Hobsons Bay Kindergarten (an existing kindergarten housed in a 50 year old Council owned facility at the end of its functional life) relocated to the new early years facility as did the Hobsons Bay Toy Library, and the Williamstown Child Care Co-operative which was situated on a land locked site preventing future development options and was therefore challenged to comply with the commonwealth
and state children’s services reforms.
The main objective of the project was to provide a “one stop shop” facility
for a range of early years services in a state of the art facility.
2.1.2 Project Outcomes
The relocation of the services to one site has resulted in the delivery of an extended integrated early year’s program and has fulfilled the demand for long day care and four year old kindergarten in the local neighbourhood.
The facility, which was completed on time and commenced operation on 6th January 2014, is being managed and staffed by a not for profit organisation, Early Childhood Management Services, which won a competitive tender to provide the early years services. The new centre has received tremendous support from the community and in the first month of operation the childcare and kindergarten rooms were fully utilised.
2.1.3 Innovative Features of the project
The new facility is highly aesthetically pleasing, with abundant use of natural light. The design features high levels ceilings, high and low level windows, natural ventilation using a night purge system, low level intake trickle vents and high level clerestory windows and wide corridors. The building is u-shaped in plan with the two longer arms of the building accommodating the children’s activity areas. These wings are orientated to the north to maximise sunlight to the rooms and the areas of glazing have been designed to ensure winter sun penetration, with shading devices incorporated to block out the summer sun.
The building has also been designed to ensure good solar access to the main playground area which has been designed with a nautical theme in.
Hobsons Bay City Council is a bayside municipality and hence the inclusion of boats and shipwrecks within the central playground. The community room in particular has been designed to maximise flexibility of use by all groups; this has been achieved by the storing of all the toys for the toy library on large mobile shelving units in a large store adjacent to the community room in a compactus style arrangement. The toy library only operates on a Thursday and Saturday and is able to wheel out all the mobile units from the storage area into the community room and then clear the community room for the rest of the week’s activities. Five bicycle racks are provided to help cater for sustainable transport option.
2.1.4 Distinguishing features of the project or service highlighting best practice engineering principles and technologies
· The use of screw piles for the floor slab construction benefited the project in terms of time and cost; speedy installation. Vibration free installation and was included to eliminate building settlement and costly maintenance repairs in the long term.
· The use of a filtration pit to treat the rainwater collected from the carpark prior to its discharge into the stormwater network.
· The construction of a concrete floor slab and some internal masonry walls will ensure good thermal mass is achieved and to maximise efficiency of the heating and cooling in the building. The Council has also installed zoned evaporative cooling and hydronic heating to the children’s rooms and variable refrigerant volume reverse cycle air conditioning units to the administration areas.
· Collection of water from the building roof using two 30,000 litre tanks.
The water collected is to be used for both irrigation to the landscaped areas and toilet flushing.
The inclusion of an electronic boosted solar hot water system. The solar contribution is greater than 80%.
2.1.5 Benefit to the community of the project service
The spaces in the centre include two 33 place kindergarten rooms; four childcare rooms providing 76 places; a toy library; two maternal and child health consult rooms; offices for Yooralla; and community rooms. The inclusion of all the early years services in one location acknowledges the time demands on parents and allows them to access all services in one convenient location.
In addition to the early years rooms the meeting rooms and community room in the facility are available for hire and will provide much needed space for all members of the community. These spaces will be used for playgroups, seniors groups, yoga, and Pilates classes.
2.1.6 Program and project management
A Project Management Plan was developed in order to define the project scope; timeline, budget, control structure; communications; directory; meeting structure and risk management strategy. Use of local knowledge and in-house skills of the project management team in partnership with the client manager from the relevant department ensured a strong community focus. This internal project team established an interdepartmental reference group to ensure that all elements of the design and construction such as planning, traffic management, maintenance, occupational health and safety were addressed. The project team worked closely with the architects and builders to achieve the optimum outcome for the project. A Council sponsored community reference group was established to provide input into the design of the new facility and this comprised members from DEECD; Newport Gardens Primary School; Hobsons Bay Kindergarten and Williamstown Childcare Co operative staff and committee members; and Hobsons Bay Toy Library committee members. The design of the facility has been greatly influenced by the inclusion of these team members and has resulted in a well functioning facility that supports the building’s users daily activities as well as one that is visually pleasing. A Project Control Group (PCG) was established and met regularly throughout the design phase to discuss and address design and community issues effectively. The PCG then met fortnightly for site meetings with the builder during construction phase to resolve any construction issues quickly so as to facilitate smooth site progress. The PCG was able to control budgets and schedules to ensure that issues were quickly resolved and milestones met within agreed timeframes. This arrangement ensured high quality documentation and strongly influenced the selection of environmentally sustainable materials and design options where possible.