LITTLE SAINTS EARLY LEARNING AT ALL SAINTS COLLEGE 

Little Saints childcare project at the prestigious All Saints College, Perth Western Australia. Imbedded within the campus compound after careful sites selection process the building is inserted into the side of a hill with views looking up at the main campus as well view looking out over the oval fostering engagement between the youngest members of the school cohort.

The building itself a tough concrete shell referencing a stone revealed in the hill adopted the image of a thunder rock by the client team, referencing a tough external shell with a soft refined internal.

The building form informed by reviewing pedagogical models of education informed by client directive for the centre. From the reception and the first classroom it starts off rectilinear, controlled and as it progresses through the classrooms and down the slope of the site, the building form changes into more organic shape representing complexities and diversity of life,. The final classroom for pre kindy aged kids creates diverse and unique spaces for the learning mind.

Throughout the centre we seemed to create opportunities for engagement between different age groups with windows from hallways looking into place spaces as well as parts of the landscape allow younger kids to observe the older kids to foster that ‘path’ of education a longing for the future.

Architecture in the case of little saints became the facilitator of spatial organisation of child development while being careful of pedagogical directives has seen a centre that allows for its kids to learn through investigation enforcing self directed learning.

Project: Little Saints Childcare - Matthew Crawford Architects JV with Tom Godden Architects

Location: Bullcreek, Western Australia

Status: Construction completion ETA MAY 2024