Constructed next to the Clara Barton Elementary School, the 31,483-sf Educare Los Angeles at Long Beach’s campus includes four prefabricated buildings that offer research-based, year-round child care and early education programs.
The center includes 16 large, open-concept classrooms, a play therapy room, and a playground. A two-story administrative building features a double-height lobby and gross motor/multipurpose room (each with 25-foot ceilings), a kitchen, conference room, nurse’s office, and parent resource and training center. The spaces are all designed specifically to foster social, physical, and emotional growth.
Originally designed as conventional construction, rising costs and a tight schedule prompted the campus’s switch to modular construction. American Modular Systems (AMS) was chosen to modularize the design.
Courtesy AMS.
The Center’s design features high ceilings with skylights, walls of stacked windows, and colorful finishes. THe spaces are lit via a combination of natural light and automated LED lighting. The LED lighting combines with automated climate control to reduce energy usage by up to 60%.
See Also: Modular construction may be key to relieving housing crunch
AMS mixed three-dimensional module sizes to create the two-story administrative building’s modern aesthetic. The modules were installed on a concrete foundation and have the same permanence as a traditional building.
"Customizing factory-built buildings allowed us to deliver the same amenities and high-end aesthetic at a lower cost," said Brian Dougherty, the project’s Architect-of-Record, in a release. “"If you compare the original drawings to the finished campus, we built exactly what we set out to build, and we did it in half the time."
Related Stories
Sponsored | | Oct 24, 2014
Infographic: 5 key considerations for securing modular workspace
Keep these five considerations in mind for your next project that may benefit from modular space. SPONSORED CONTENT
| Oct 21, 2014
Check out BD+C's GreenZone Environment Education Classroom debuting this week at Greenbuild
At the conclusion of the show, the modular classroom structure will be moved to a permanent location in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, where it will serve as a community center and K-12 classroom.
Sponsored | | Oct 16, 2014
Drilling deeper: The booming Bakken Shale region
The Bakken Shale region, which spans from central North Dakota to the northeastern corner of Montana, is rapidly growing as a result of the oil and gas boom. SPONSORED CONTENT
| Oct 16, 2014
Perkins+Will white paper examines alternatives to flame retardant building materials
The white paper includes a list of 193 flame retardants, including 29 discovered in building and household products, 50 found in the indoor environment, and 33 in human blood, milk, and tissues.
| Oct 15, 2014
Harvard launches ‘design-centric’ center for green buildings and cities
The impetus behind Harvard's Center for Green Buildings and Cities is what the design school’s dean, Mohsen Mostafavi, describes as a “rapidly urbanizing global economy,” in which cities are building new structures “on a massive scale.”
| Oct 12, 2014
AIA 2030 commitment: Five years on, are we any closer to net-zero?
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the American Institute of Architects’ effort to have architecture firms voluntarily pledge net-zero energy design for all their buildings by 2030.
| Oct 9, 2014
Regulations, demand will accelerate revenue from zero energy buildings, according to study
A new study by Navigant Research projects that public- and private-sector efforts to lower the carbon footprint of new and renovated commercial and residential structures will boost the annual revenue generated by commercial and residential zero energy buildings over the next 20 years by 122.5%, to $1.4 trillion.
Sponsored | | Oct 7, 2014
Containing healthcare crises with modular units
With the recent news of the first Ebola case diagnosed in the U.S., there’s a lot of chatter about the possibility of a widespread outbreak in America. SPONSORED CONTENT
Sponsored | | Oct 1, 2014
Make space for Williams Scotsman
Can you guess what enables groundbreaking medical procedures, instruction of our future leaders, and meeting space for energy exploration professionals? The answer is modular space solutions. SPONSORED CONTENT
Sponsored | | Sep 30, 2014
How project managers can manage technology
Not long ago, the role of a construction project manager revolved around working with people: employees, vendors, consultants, designers, subcontractors and owners. Today, project managers primarily manage information. SPONSORED CONTENT
