The new Blackfriars Children?s Centre is a childcare center in Sydney by DJRD and Lacoste + Stevenson, architects in association. The building celebrates the beautifully naive depictions of housing by children. Each playroom in the Centre is in the form of a house as might be drawn by a child; a box with a pitched roof.  A sense of home in both scale and materiality creates the feeling of a familiar place.
Photography: Brett Boardman
The overall form is a series of small ?houses? continuously connected along the street, each varying slightly in pitch and scale to create an animated streetscape of pitched roofs.  The profile of pitched roofs provides a prominent presence for the Centre along Blackfriars Street. The materials used evoke warmth, welcome and transparency.  The external façade is a combination of clear glass and glass with a graphic, and painted vertical timber paneling with the gable roof ends clad in a translucent sheet that is illuminated from within. Photography: Brett Boardman
Colorful timber slats partially screen the internal ?street? from the public footpath.  Large-format, historic photographs of past events of Blackfriars School connects the new center to the site. The footprint of the building has been designed to respond to and complete the courtyard formed by the heritage buildings.  Engagement between the new and old architecture is achieved with the dimpled mirror polished panels which clad the façades facing the heritage buildings. The eff...