While we’re all children at heart, as designers we need to understand the unique challenges of designing spaces and equipment for children. Play areas for children require play features and site elements that address the different progressional stages of development as well as extra consideration for child safety and protection.

An important component of many of todays development projects, daycares are the result of a collaborative design process whereby DK works closely with the daycare operators, licensing staff, social planning, the consultant team, play equipment designers, and contractors to locate, design and construct unique and imaginative spaces for children's play. The challenge in designing many of these facilities lies in finding a suitable location for the daycares and ensuring the focus of the space is on the site features, rather than on the building infrastructure encompassing the space. Accordingly, the design team works together to select materials according to their scent, texture, colour, flexibility and visual interest to create dynamic and lively play spaces. At DK, we emphasize the use of natural materials, such as wood, stone and plant material to bring life into the space and create a welcoming natural environment for children to uncover. Designing daycares demands the same methodology as designing the larger urban spaces, only at a smaller scale. Collaboration with each of the various trades and constant review of each component of the construction process is essential to the success of these projects.