By Smith Architects
The site for Fantails Childcare Early Learning Centre is located in a prominent position at the centre of a new subdivision of Auckland.
The client, Fantails Childcare Early Learning Centre, wanted a building that would be a bold architectural statement, clearly standing out from the typical houses and commercial buildings around. The triangular plan and elevation of the building is abstracted from the form of the fantail, a native NZ bird with a striking fanned tail, after which the Childcare is named.
Viewed from the entrance, the striking roof form comes together to look like the fan of the fantail, whilst from each opposite corner, the form takes on a more nautical feel, looking like overlapping sails on a yacht, thereby recalling its location in the ‘city of sails’.
Location: Silverdale, Auckland, New Zealand
Construction cost: NZ$ 1.5 million; NZ$ 1.71 million including landscaping
Area: 550m²
Programme: Completed 2014
Smith Architects is an award-winning international architectural practice creating beautiful human spaces that are unique, innovative and sustainable through creativity, refinement, and care.
Phil and Tiffany Smith established the practice in 2007. We have spent more than two decades striving to understand what makes some buildings more attractive than others, in the anticipation that it can help us design better buildings.
Recent advances in neuroscience and psychology have enabled scientists to unlock some of the reasons why we find certain works of art, objects and environments more attractive than others, and at the heart of it is simple Darwinian theory: if we find something attractive we will be more likely to choose that thing over another – be it a painting, a piece of music, a landscape or even a building.
At Smith Architects, we use these learning to inform our designs, striving to create beauty in everything we do, in the belief that beautiful spaces create better environments for human beings or ‘beautiful human spaces’.
We carefully integrates architectural, landscape, interior and furniture design skills to ensure projects achieve an holistic integrity that meets our client’s needs. At the core of our design rigour, we believe that modern, sustainable, research-based design delivers a successful project with innovative solutions that work for our clients.
Our Auckland, New Plymouth, and Arrowtown offices design and deliver projects ranging from refurbishments to new-builds; from domestic scale to urban master plans; from conception to completion. Our experience covers a broad range of typologies – masterplans, mixed-use schemes, residential; offices; cultural; educational; healthcare and childcare.
We work with a diverse client base, including developers, private, government and charities and have experience of working with multiple stakeholders on challenging sites around the world.
We are a member of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the New Zealand Green Building Council (NZGBC), Site Safe New Zealand, and the Sustainability Business Network.