The Anchor Center for Blind Children’s 15,000-square-foot teaching facility is a functional yet graceful facility that serves as an active teaching tool for blind and visually-impaired infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
Situated on a 2.2-acre site, this serene facility has been meticulously designed to elevate learning and engage children in a deeper understanding of their world. Subtle, strategically placed sensory elements and child-sized detailing throughout this “touch-friendly” building and site serve as intuitive guides and integrated teaching tools. By embracing the senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste in innovative ways, Davis Partnership’s seamless marriage of interior and exterior spaces provide the ideal container for Anchor Center’s specialized multi-sensory curriculum.
Designed as an integral part of its neighborhood, this one-story structure aligns with the street edge, respectfully mirroring the adjacent residential scale. Classroom “pods”, clad in a subtle Braille-inspired-pattern of blond masonry that plays light against shadow, reach skyward, while revealing the building’s interior spatial organization. The elongated series of pods, connected by a central circulation spine, are flooded in diffused northern light through a series of filtered clerestory windows just below the angled roofline. Variations in scale, materials and lighting assist children with orientation.
The building’s interior architecture is intentionally clean, simple and free of obstructions. Internally, three colors- — blue, yellow and rose — serve as way-finding elements while visually separating the three “mind, spirit and body” pods of the building. Chosen based on a careful study of color theory and the actual passive or active nature of each pod, this triad of hues is integrated throughout the building in the form of skylights, door lights and wall scones.
