The Integrated Child Centre (ikc in Dutch) is a combined primary school and preschool on Zeeburgereiland, a major urban expansion area of the city of Amsterdam. At the moment, the island is still largely empty, but the citys plans envision over 5000 new dwellings, to be built in phases, combined with retail functions, public services and infrastructure. The ikc school building was one of the first buildings to be completed on Zeeburgereiland with the purpose of attracting young families to the area. The project was tendered as a dbmo project, which stands for Design, Build, Maintain and Operate. All these activities were combined into single contract with the aim of fast-tracking the project, and pushing the parties involved into thinking actively about the buildings maintenance and operation as part of the design process.Strategic objectives Functional requirements Technical requirements The projects strategicThe functional part of the briefThe technical part of the brief brief mentioned two mainexplained the buildings mainfocused mainly on the quality objectives: the provision ofspatial needs: space for primaryof the indoor climate, in line excellent education and theeducation, space for after-schoolwith the clients aim to create a delivery of demand-drivencare, a large gymnastics spacehealthy learning environment.accommodation. The firstand a nursery/kindergarten.It also paid attention to the objective is about creating anIn addition, there should be anquality of the interior finishes of environment where children feeloutdoor playground of at leastthe different spacesalbeit in a safe and where their well-being1,200 square metres, a large partrather generalized way, using a and health is safeguarded byof which had to be accessiblequality scale of standard, good ergonomic design and a healthyoutside school hours for childrenand excellent. For example, the indoor climate. The secondfrom the neighbourhood.floor finishes for the classrooms objective is about flexibility.For the classrooms, the briefwere specified as excellent in In urban expansion areas likementioned a minimum size of 52terms of ease of cleaning and Zeeburgereiland it is hard tosquare metres usable floor area,as standard for resistance to predict the future need forwhich was deemed sufficientchemicals. educational facilities becauseto accommodate groups of upClearly reflecting the young the areas pace of development isto 30 children. It also askedage of the buildings users, the strongly dependent on marketfor a generous floor-to-ceilingtechnical brief specified that all conditions. To deal with thisclassroom height of at least 3.2doors in the building were to be uncertainty, the municipalitymetres to ensure that the roomsfinger safe.wanted a highly flexible buildingwould have a spacious and airy that would be able to respondfeel. The brief also stressed the quickly to changes in the numberimportance of visual overview in of pupils, teaching styles andclassrooms. Square class rooms educational concepts. One of thewere mentioned as a preferred main requirements was that itsolution to allow for different should be possible to expand thekinds of furniture arrangements.number of classrooms from 10 to 16 during the summer vacation.