KiTa Bärenhöle: high safety for children thanks to X-TEND

03. Dec / 2020

In September 2020 the time had finally come: The Bärenhöhle day care center in the East Frisian community of Esens opened its doors. After around 16 months of construction, the new building was ready to move in. In this way, a well-suited space is available for the education and care of the children in the city. This contributes to development and relieves the parents.

Multi-storey open-plan building

Since there was little available building space in the central areas of the community, the architects decided to build a two-story building. This offers a sufficiently large area to accommodate the children in Esens and the surrounding area. An open construction,which was carried out by the Thater architectural office, method was used for the implementation. This appears friendly and inviting and also leads to better contact between the individual groups.

Fall protection: particularly important in daycare

The architectural requirements for the building presented a major challenge. Due to the two-story construction with large open areas, there is a significant risk of falling. Since there are many small children in the day-care center, a simple railing is also not sufficient. This must be designed in such a way that it is not possible to climb over it. In addition, individual bars for fall protection are not sufficient in this case, as small children can squeeze between them. As a result, crash protection was a significant challenge for this project.

Stainless steel cable mesh X-TEND: a perfect solution for safety in the daycare

The architects therefore opted for the high-quality X-TEND stainless steel cable mesh from Carl Stahl Architektur. This is very flexible and is also ideal for larger areas. In this way, it is not a problem to create a fall protection system that extends from the floor to the ceiling and therefore cannot be climbed over. In addition, the stainless steel cable mesh is extremely robust and the CXE clamp makes it easy and reliable to attach it. Nevertheless, it does not affect the open character of the building. With a rope diameter of 1.5 mm and a mesh size of 40 mm, it hardly restricts the view. Therefore, this solution was perfect for the KiTa bear cave in Esens.

Images: Thater // Nöthe