b'Construction briefingGeneralThe Integrated Child Centre (IKC in Dutch) is a combined primary school and preschool on Zeeburgereiland, a major urban expansion area of the city ofAmsterdam. 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 Functional TechnicalThe projects strategic briefThe functional part of theThe technical part of the brief mentioned two main objectives:brief explained the buildingsfocused mainly on the quality the provision of main spatial needs: spaceof the indoor climate, in line excellent education and thefor primary education, spacewith the clients aim to create a delivery of demand-drivenfor after-school care, a largehealthy learning environment.accommodation. The firstgymnastics space and a nursery/ It also paid attention to the objective is about creating ankindergarten. quality of the interior finishes of environment where children feelIn addition, there should be anthe different spacesalbeit in a safe and where their well-beingoutdoor playground of at least rather generalized way, using a and health is safeguarded by1,200 square metres, a large partquality scale of standard, good ergonomic design and a healthyof which had to be accessibleand excellent. For example, the indoor climate. The secondoutside school hours for childrenfloor finishes for the classrooms objective is about flexibility. from the neighbourhood. were specified as excellent in In urban expansion areas likeFor the classrooms, the briefterms of ease of cleaning andZeeburgereiland it is hard tomentioned a minimum size of 52as standard for resistance to predict the future need forsquare metres usable floor area,chemicals.educational facilities becausewhich was deemed sufficient Clearly reflecting the young the areas pace of developmentto accommodate groups of upage of the buildings users, the is strongly dependent on marketto 30 children. It also askedtechnical brief specified that all conditions. To deal with thisfor a generous floor-to-ceilingdoors in the building were to be uncertainty, the municipalityclassroom height of at least 3.2 finger safe.wanted a highly flexible buildingmetres to ensure that the rooms that would be able to respond would have a spacious and airy quickly to changes in thefeel. The brief also stressed the number of pupils, teachingimportance of visual overview in styles and educationalclassrooms. Square class rooms concepts. One of the mainwere mentioned as a preferred requirements was that it shouldsolution to allow for different be possible to expand thekinds of furniture arrangements.number of classrooms from 10 to 16 during the summer vacation. 233'