Daycare centres "Sachsenspatzen" and "Filou" take possession of their completely renovated building at Ludwig-Richter-Straße 27, which cost 3.16 million euros

The children and daycare teams will move out of the interim accommodation used during the construction period from February 2013 to October 2014 in the second week of the autumn holidays. One week later, "Sachsenspatzen" and "Filou" will be ready to welcome their 221 places - 55 children under the age of 3 and 166 children over the age of 3. At the end of November, the event will be celebrated with children and parents, daycare teams and everyone involved in the construction with an open day - invitations are being sent out for Friday, 28 November in the old new building at Ludwig-Richter-Straße 27.

Extensive construction work carried out in the almost 30-year-old building, redesign of the outdoor facilities: Between 1997 and 2007, individual renovation and maintenance measures (roof, sanitary facilities, fire protection, painting and flooring work) were carried out on and in the daycare centre, which was built in 1985. The outdoor facilities, which have now been redesigned as part of the complete refurbishment, have remained virtually unchanged over the past three decades and are characterised by large, central sand play areas framed by an adventure landscape consisting of a toboggan hill with fruit meadow, western play area, football pitch and swings. An 80 metre-long roller track, which winds its way up and down the site under suspension bridges between play towers, connects all the individual areas. Child-friendly planting with wild strawberries and herbs rounds off the overall concept, which has been agreed with the users of the facility. The highlight is a fantasy animal designed by the children, reminiscent of a dinosaur, which was structurally implemented by the landscape architects from sLandArt and finished by hand with colourful mosaic tiles by the young creative minds: Work began before the start of the autumn holidays and will continue in the first week of November, depending on the weather.

The landscaping work was carried out by the company Grünanlagen Uwe Pügner. The city invested around 230,000 euros of the total sum available for the design of the outdoor facilities.

The aim of the multi-million euro project - which was approved by the city council on 25 January 2012 - was to improve the care and living conditions in the building as well as its energy-efficient refurbishment, the redesign and thus also upgrading of the two previously very cramped entrance areas to the two buildings as well as barrier-free access to the basement in the area of the extensions, which were also given a roof. A new barrier-free WC was also installed in the basement; the interior doors were installed without thresholds.

Rooms were also efficiently reorganised during the overall renovation: In the building complex, which consists of a central building and two recessed side wings, the existing kitchen area was extended and designed for 200 portions. To this end, the corridor in the centre building was moved to the outer wall (north side), creating a self-contained kitchen area with a separate entrance. The entrance areas to buildings 1 and 2 were each upgraded with extensions across all three floors and a new room for the crèche pushchair and a waiting area for parents were integrated into these additional buildings. Other practical innovations include a storage room for pushchairs, a new therapy and exercise room and a children's kitchen on the upper floor in the immediate vicinity of the entrance areas of each building.

On the ground floor, the entire floor structure, including the sub-concrete, was removed, new underground pipes were laid and the floor was rebuilt with appropriate thermal insulation. In addition, there is now more space in the basement for dirty laundry: The nappies that accumulate are now collected in a "nappy box" set up in the area of the waste collection point.

The rooms on the ground and upper floors of the building - the group rooms to the south and the sanitary facilities and ancillary rooms to the north - only required minor remodelling work: In each house, a large opening was made between the group rooms on the upper floor so that the rooms, which are now separated by folding partitions, can also be used together easily. Noise protection measures were implemented to reduce the noise level: Acoustic ceilings were installed in parts of the ceilings and impact sound-absorbing coverings on the floors. On the ground floor of each building, a manager's room, staff toilet and cleaning room were integrated into the extensions; on the upper floor, a new staff recreation room was created. Last but not least, the colour concept implemented as part of the complete refurbishment of the Ludwig-Richter-Straße 27 daycare centre was also part of the project.

Ecological aspects played an important role in the planning of the complete refurbishment of the building at Ludwig-Richter-Straße 27: the electrical systems and the two small lifts were completely renewed and the aspect of energy saving was always taken into account at the same time. Energy-saving options were also taken into account and realised when designing the outer shell of the building: The building was completely fitted with a thermal insulation composite system and plastic windows with triple glazing were installed to reduce heat loss. On the south side, the windows were fitted with external adjustable, electrically operated blinds in the form of external venetian blinds. The flat roof of the building was also refurbished to meet today's requirements and the lightning protection was renewed. A solar thermal system was installed on the roof to support heat generation for heating and hot water. The energy generated is fed into a multifunctional storage tank. Another new feature is that rainwater is to be used to supply water to the toilet facilities in order to reduce the daycare centre's operating costs.