Mother Duck, Wynnum, Brisbane

Brief
Distil the essence of an award-winning, brand-defining building. Capture it, then apply it across the client’s estate.

Brand building by branding a building
Mother Duck is a successful childcare business with 13 centres in Brisbane, Australia. Our first project, a new-build centre in the suburb of Wynnum that’s a daytime home-from-home for 130 children, opened in 2014. The project was the stuff of architects’ dreams. A client prepared to buy into big ideas, a design team happy to get down on their knees to see from a child’s perspective, a building that delivered pizzazz and practicality.

The design – a mix of carefully considered zones, bright colours, and child-pleasing features like a child’s-eye-level fish tank in the reception desk – worked because it captured the brand and made it concrete (and wood and carpet and colour).

In 2017, three years after it opened, the challenge was how to sprinkle that brand over the other 12 centres – and make sure new ones get the same treatment. First, we analysed the challenge. We reviewed the estate and broke it down into building types and typical layouts and documented the features that defined the Wynnum scheme. Then we looked at practical finishes and features that would deliver lots of brand bang per buck, and how to develop a recognisable look and feel without breaking the bank.

Our answers ranged from ways to make car parks safe and a fun entrance-point, to developing visual and material signatures that carry brand touchpoints into every corner of every building. We’re building a brand by branding its buildings.