The Bop Bop Karrong Barwon Heads is a new-build 66-place preschool centre, with Maternal Child Health consulting located in Barwon Heads. The centre’s design is one embedded within its surrounding community, nestled amongst a series of local sporting facilities and share open spaces. A large Community Room opens out to these surrounds, offering activities such as playgroup, and the ability for the local community to interact with the centre. This centre also mitigated some shortfalls within the local area, incorporating storage for the local Athletics Club and resolving carparking and access to other facilities.

Due to its location, passive surveillance was critical, both throughout the centre for children’s safety, but to the building surrounds, to manage unwanted after hours behaviour, but also to maximise sightlines from the centre. This resulted in a centre that feels light and airy, at one with the landscape through native planting and the extensive use of warm timbers, but not lost within it.

The centre was designed to be a 5 Star Green Star equivalent design, but furthermore, it was important that all sustainability measures had an educational role. As such, solar panels and storage levels of rain water tanks were prominently displayed, and passive heating and cooling were encouraged. Nature play also reinforced these ideas to young learners, with water play activities, a digging patch, veggie beds and an outdoor classroom creating a ‘bush kinder’ feel.