Child Care Design Guide

Overview

A-Z's for designing superior day care facilities

Virtually unknown 30 years ago, daycare has become a growth industry. Child Care Design Guide helps architects and designers plan, design, and renovate functional, developmentally rich, pleasing centers. Author Anita Rui Olds brings to this work over 25 years of design experience with children's facilities. She gives you step-by-step explanations of interior and exterior layout and design principles fleshed out in clarifying case studies. You learn about licensing and code requirements, operational standards and strategies, and get helpful checklists, charts and graphs for optimum facility design within time, space, and budgetary constraints. This highly visual work features over 300 floor plans for infant and toddler, preschool, and afterschool spaces, plus areas for outdoor play and more.

Table of contents

Introduction.
Part I: The Child's Environment.
Raising America's Children.
The Spirit of Place.
Part II: The Design Process.
The Design Team and Its Mission.
How to Start.
Location, Land, and Building.
Part III: Essential Ingredients of Good Design.
Light, Sound and Color.
Textures, Fixtures and Furniture.
Part IV: Functional Spaces.
Laying Out the Center.
Laying Out a Room.
Developing Room Design.
Infant and Toddler Spaces.
Preschool Spaces.
Afterschool Spaces.
Staff, Parents and the Community.
Outdoor Play.
A Model for the Future.

Review quote

CHILD CARE DESIGN GUIDE
by Anita Rui Olds

This new resource guide is the compiled works of the late Anita Rui Olds. Anita held a doctorate in Human Development and Social Psychology from Harvard University and was the founder and director of The Child Care Institute, an annual training program for designers and child-care profesionals. Her firm, Anita Olds & Associates, amassed over 30 years of experience in the design of children's environments. In addition, Anita was on the advisory council of the ECO Institute.

The book contains the principles of interior and exterior layout and design for child care centers, beginning with an explanation of the important facets of a child environment. Fully developed ideas and solutions for effective design processes, intelligent overall center design, and efficient layout of dedicated, as well as over 550 floor plans, drawings, photographs, charts, and illustrations.

Biographical note

Anita Rui Olds (Woodacre, CA) holds a doctorate from Harvard University and has taught since 1969 at Tufts University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her firm Anita Olds and Associates has more than 25 years of experience in the design of children's environmental facilities, including daycare, hospitals, playgrounds, and schools. She is widely published and makes frequent presentations.