Infants front and centre: Perkins Architects' Boorai childcare facility at Ocean Grove

Ocean Groves Boorai Centre keeps a safe outdoor play space close by. Photo: Fred Thompson

Ian Perkins, director of Perkins Architects, has been designing childcare and early learning centres since the mid-1980s.

With almost 100 centres completed, many of which are in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, Perkins has seen their development and growth, as well as their changes over the decades.

"We've always been conscious of allowing children to explore their minds, as well as spaces," he says. "But there is always that fine line between adventure and creating a nurturing and safe environment."

One of the most recent children's hubs completed by Perkins Architects is the Boorai Centre at Ocean Grove.

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Commissioned by the City of Geelong, the brief was to create a range of services for families with young children, from birth to kindergarten years.

A "one-stop shop", the Boorai Centre includes maternal and child health facilities and consulting rooms, together with a wing dedicated to "long day care".

At one end of this wing are rooms designated for younger infants, while at the other are rooms for those of kindergarten age.

Perkins Architects also created a secondary wing for kindergarten children attending sessional groups in the morning or afternoon.

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Infants front and centre: Perkins Architects' Boorai childcare facility at Ocean Grove