Parent Infant Center: Master Plan and Outdoor Spaces
Nestling natural play and education into an urban campus.
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Client: the Parent Infant Center
Size: .75 acres
Project status: Construction complete 2013.
Project team: Ground Reconsidered.
The Parent Infant Center (PIC) is a non-profit early childcare facilitated located in Philadelphia’s University City neighborhood. PIC occupies the history buildings of the former Episcopal Divinity School of Philadelphia. With expanded operations and increased enrollment, the center’s outdoor activity areas were showing signs of extensive wear and needed revitalization.
Ground Reconsidered developed a Master Plan for the outdoor space. We collaborated with stakeholders that included administrators', teachers, parents, and interested community residents. The design for the play space allows children to connect with nature and is divided into themed ‘rooms’ focused on art, digging, building, climbing, as well as a stage and a vegetable garden. The new play space has been certified as a Nature Explore Classroom by the Arbor Day Foundation. Ground Reconsidered worked with PIC to develop implementation strategies and project phasing and produced material to help the client secure funding for the project.
