Location: Singapore, Singapore.

Architect: LAUD Architects.

The MY FIRST SKOOL LCCC AT SEGAR GARDENS is a large childcare centre that caters to the teaching and caring of 380 children, including infants, toddlers, playgroup, nursery, and kindergarten 1 & 2 schoolings. The centre is located by the park and has a built-up area of 2,484 m2. The site fronts the Zhenghua Nature Park, providing children with daily experiences of learning, playing, and exploring nature. The design of the centre is driven by buildability and constructability, creating an engaging and responsive design for the site, climate, and environment. The design is a 3-storey structure grids repetition with an open cut approach to avoid retaining walls, allowing for easier and faster construction. The materials used include prefabricated columns cage, precast JOE-Green panels, precast ventilations block walls, prefabricated balustrade modules, and green roof in a roll of mats on top of metal roof finish to speed up the construction process. The design challenges include responding to users’ needs, and operational requirements, and designing interesting yet functional spaces and details. The construction challenges were situated at Bukit Panjang Planning Area with the number of rainy days, making it one of the biggest challenges in constructing this centre. However, with the joint effort of the project team, the project was successfully completed within the given timeframe.

Photo credit: Melvin HJ Tan, Nasrul Shafiq.