Smart use of preschool roof space: this design is loved by children

When it comes to preschool outdoor playgrounds, many people will naturally think of outdoor courtyards. However, have you discovered anything in the Preschool? In today’s Preschool design, more and more Preschools begin to utilize the roof space to be a roof garden or a game space, and children can fully contact nature and understand life.Whether a Preschool has a vast and rich outdoor activity space is one of the factors that parents choose when choosing a Preschool. But it is wrong to think that all Preschool roof spaces are suitable as playgrounds. There are many details that require designers to comprehensively consider and alternate.

01/Confirming the Characteristics of the Roof

If you want to use the roof space of a Preschool building, you must first determine whether it is a roof that people are allowed to climb on. There are two intuitive ways to make a preliminary judgment.
·Whether the building itself has a staircase to the roof；
·Both the roof parapet and the top of the guardrail are more than 1.3 meters away from the finished surface of the roof slab. But in the end it still needs to be confirmed based on the structural drawings of the building.

02/Understanding the Roof Structure

When using a rooftop site, common functional structures such as roof vents, light wells, and pipes need to be wrapped or sealed with soft materials. If the roof has a regular shape, it can be considered to be an open game venue; If the roof has an irregular shape and diversified layout planning, it can embed various game activities in a small area, or make it a little garden, which can nourish the childhood of children by the natural environment.

03/The Functional Form of the Roof

The roof space of the Preschool can be made into an open sports area, planting area, art creation area, scientific exploration area, view borrowing area, upper and lower connected area, and so on.
·Open Sport Area
This functional form of the open sports area is suitable for a smooth and flat roof, but if you want to install large-scale amusement facilities, you still need to consider the load-bearing problem of the building structure. In addition, the ground should be made of soft materials with good cushioning, anti-skid and weather resistance. Common materials include plastic ground, artificial turf ground (filled with plastic particles), PVC outdoor ground, etc.

When this venue carries out ball games and throwing games, the sound absorption and sound insulation of the floor must be done. If the site has a parapet, a high fence must be added to prevent objects from falling from the roof. (PS: It is not recommended to set up too many ball games and throw games on the roof.)

·Planting Area
When using a roof for soil-covered planting, it is necessary to recheck the load of the building structure to determine the thickness of soil that the roof can withstand. In addition, planting areas need barriers to prevent puncture of plant roots and to insulate the waterproofing layer.
Considering the architectural status of the old building, it is not recommended to do soil cover planting on the roof of the old building, and the plants can be planted with mobile planting boxes to flexibly and effectively use the roof space. The material of the ground has to consider characteristics of fast drainage and easy cleaning, therefore, the common materials are the stone floor and concrete floor. If a wooden floor is installed, a hydrophobic layer must be made under the load-bearing bed.

·Art Creation Area 
By utilizing the wall body of the building’s parapet and other structural facades as the carrier of the graffiti creation, the floor of the art creation area can also be treated as the graffiti ground and the material can use the gray machine-cut stone, concrete, or cement mortar floor (surface finish).  Besides, concrete or cement mortar floors need to be coated with a special sealing and waterproof protective agent on the surface.
The graffiti area on the ground should be drained separately, and the height of the finished surface should be lower than the finished surface of the surrounding roofs to prevent the flushed sewage from contaminating other areas. Moreover, when the ground is looking for a slope, the final solution should be to simplify the collection and discharge of sewerage after cleaning.

·Scientific Exploration Area
Depending on the condition of the roof, rainwater collection can be installed in areas where it is easy to collect rainwater as a support for the water exploration game scene. At the same time, locations with good lighting conditions can be used as light and shadow play areas. Even more than that, many types of weather-sensing science exploration activities can be conducted based on rooftop conditions.

·View Borrowing Area
Since the preschool roof has the widest view, children can often see their surroundings far away from the roof. Meanwhile, they either see the city where they live or the scenery near the preschool. Therefore, if conditions permit, the method of borrowing scenery can be considered for roof design.
However,the prerequisite for borrowing scenery is that safe and transparent guardrails must be designed to ensure the safety of children and allow children to see different scenery on the roof.

·Upper and Lower Connected Area
According to the conditions of the building site, the roof and ground space can be connected through multiple climbing and other upward and downward methods, breaking the spatial concept of absolute separation between the upper and lower floors. There are some problems brought by the special location of the roof: The effects of prolonged exposure to sunlight, rainy weather, etc.These factors will cause some usage problems for children, so no matter what kind of roof design, we should consider it comprehensively and arrange some sunshade devices, rainproof spaces, etc.

Preschool roof design is the same as Preschool courtyard design, both are comprehensively considered based on each Preschool’s own space conditions, Preschool concept, and Preschool curriculum. What's more, the roof is the nearest outdoor space to the Preschool's top floor. When we design the function of the roof, we can think more about what kind of play space we can provide for children's daily activities.