Wequassett Resort Children’s Center

The Children’s Center is a small building that has a big impact on the resort complex. It is within view of the central vehicular and pedestrian circulation routes and sits at the edge of a parking lot that serves the restaurant and banquet facilities of the resort. Our goal was to create a building that would give a high profile to the fledgling children’s program, a critical element in meeting the owner’s goals of attracting more families and in being considered a premier family-friendly resort. A strong confirmation that our goal was met came when, after the first season in our new building, the Children’s Program was designated one of the ten best Hotel Kid’s Programs in the country by Travel and Leisure magazine.

The image the building projects is of a place that is fun and playful but still within the white and gray Cape Cod vernacular with which the Resort is associated. It was important to the Resort that the building also functions as a banquet or meeting space when not in use by the Children’s Program and it has quickly become popular for that purpose.

The unique “cut-out” children’s figures that hold up the front entry porch roof, stand in front of the arched windows, and stand on the top of the cupola, were modeled on real children of the target age for the Center, who posed for photographs. Their figures were abstracted to create the architectural sign-boards that, day and night (when back-lit) emphatically announce the function of the Center within the overall resort.