MIT | Koch Childcare Center

KMDG created a playful and whimsical series of spaces that support the mission of engaging and caring for young children. The spaces reflect a blend of the natural and built conditions while providing a sense of safety, scale and enclosure for the children and their caregivers.

MIT | Koch Childcare Center

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

  • 14,700 SF

  • Complete

  • D.W. Arthur Associates, architect
    Nitsch Engineering, civil engineer
    KMDG, landscape architect

  • Education + Childcare
    Parks + Play

  • Christian Phillips Photography
    Mike Emanouil
    D.W. Arthur Associates Architecture, Inc.

Cambridge, MA

Tucked around the base of a new modular building housing the David H. Koch Childcare Center, KMDG created a playful and whimsical series of spaces that support the mission of engaging and caring for young children.

The spaces reflect a blend of the natural and built conditions while providing a sense of safety, scale and enclosure for the children and their caregivers.

Located on well-traveled Vassar Street, the play spaces offer intrigue, texture, color and challenge at all times of year in spaces that strike a balance between being programmed and open and loose to allow children to explore their world on their own. Highlights include child-scaled landforms for climbing up and over, a bamboo ‘forest,’ a garden maze, decks for unprogrammed imaginary play, and textural and multi-seasonal plantings.

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