You may not think of Montessory schools and adult care facilities as being similar. After all, one serves young children, while the other provides assisted living especially for elderly individuals. At the same time, especially when it comes to construction, both of these types of facilities need very similar priorities to succeed.
Constructing a building designed for care always requires the utmost attention. After all, you’re not just servicing restaurant patrons or office workers, but making sure that those in need of care receive it in the best way possible. To help ensure that is the case, here are 5 priorities to keep in mind when constructing Montessori schools or adult care facilities.
1) Focus on Your Audience
Whether the finished building will serve small children or seniors, it will need to be constructed specifically with that audience in mind. From the first stage, your audience needs to be the focus of your construction efforts; anything from planning the bathrooms to designing the entry and exit points should be adjusted to fit your intended audience.
A Montessori school offers an especially relevant case study for this point. Montessori-style learning requires large rooms in which children of multiple ages play with each other. The construction project needs to keep this use case in mind in order to build a school that accomplishes these goals.
2) Mind the Location
Both children and the elderly need a very specific location for their care facilities. It needs to be easily accessible, located in an area where the population you’re looking to attract is common. In addition, it needs to account for plenty of parking (including handicapped parking) that’s close enough to the building to minimize walking time to and from the lot.
3) Use Existing Templates
As mentioned above, all Montessori schools tend to follow the same learning model. That, of course, also means that the building needs to be constructed in a very similar way, no matter where you build it. Similarly, all adult care facilities follow similar outlines to ensure proper care for every inhabitant.
To optimize your construction project in either of these areas, don’t be afraid to use existing blue prints and templates to get started. Montessori schools and adult care facilities exist all over the nation; take advantage of that fact to streamline your construction project.
4) Build a Clear Timeline
Especially if you are renovating an existing building or moving an existing facility to a new construction, you absolutely have to minimize the downtime that existing stakeholders would experience. You cannot leave the children or seniors in your care without a facility, which is why making sure that you have a clear (and achievable) timeline in place during the entirety of the project is absolutely crucial.
That timeline, of course, should cover everything within the project from the initial planning stage to the finished building. Share it with your stakeholders to maximize transparency, and ensure them that the wait will be well-worth it with a new facility designed to better meet their needs.
5) Work with Seasoned Experts
Finally, whether you’re planning to build a Montessori school or an adult care facility, try to find a construction company that has significant experience in these types of construction projects. You may need special permit, or adhere to special requirements that you don’t necessarily know about. Only working with seasoned experts in this area of construction can help you successfully get through it on time and on budget.
Whether you’re looking to build a Montessori school or an adult care facility in Minnesota, we’d love to work with you. Contact us today to learn more about a potential partnership, and ensure that your construction project will be successful.