Client: City of Burnaby Location: 4828 Rowan Avenue Size: 7,300 sf Budget: $9,700,000 Status: Completed in 2025
Childcare / Institutional / IPD
Rowan Avenue Childcare

The Rowan Avenue Childcare Centre is a new facility situated within Deer Lake Park, at the heart of Burnaby’s cultural precinct, alongside the Burnaby Art Museum, Century Gardens, and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. Designed to support early childhood development within a rich civic landscape, the centre accommodates 74 children across a range of age groups, including two preschool programs for children aged 30 months to 5 years, and two programs for infants and toddlers aged 0 to 36 months. This new facility prioritizes enrollment for City of Burnaby and Burnaby RCMP staff, while also serving the broader community. Delivered through an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) model, the project reflects a highly collaborative process that aligns with the City’s objectives and ensures both schedule reliability and cost certainty. The result is a thoughtfully executed facility delivered within a construction budget of approximately $10 million.

The architectural strategy divides the program into two smaller buildings rather than a single, larger structure. This approach responds directly to the site’s significant slope, allowing each building to be carefully sited in harmony with the natural grades. By minimizing earthworks and reducing the need for extensive foundations, the scheme achieves a lighter environmental footprint. The dual-building configuration also streamlines circulation by eliminating the need for shared exit corridors, additional stair cores, and an elevator—resulting in both spatial and cost efficiencies aligned with the City’s budget. The buildings are clad in durable, low-maintenance materials that complement the surrounding cultural context, while incorporating brightly articulated façades that support a playful, child-focused identity. Generous glazing introduces abundant natural light and establishes strong visual connections to the surrounding treed landscape, fostering a healthy and engaging environment for both children and staff.

The design team carefully applied provincial childcare design regulations, using a strategic and informed interpretation of the guidelines to maximize spatial efficiency. By optimizing how required program elements were organized and shared, the team was able to reduce redundancies and allocate more area to larger, flexible activity rooms and enhanced outdoor play spaces. This approach ensured that all licensing and safety requirements were fully met while creating a more generous, engaging environment for children and staff alike. A special thank you to childcare specialist Lynn Werker, who was a part of the team and provided programming guidance.

photography: Luke Potter

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