Teddy Bear Nursery
An early-years nursery in Abu Dhabi set inside a renovated two-storey villa — play-based learning zones arranged around a central activity space, opening onto gardens, sand play, and storytelling outdoors.
A home, reworked for early learning.
A villa, reimagined for play and discovery.
Teddy Bear Nursery turns a two-storey villa in Abu Dhabi into an early-years centre built for play. EDI organised the renovation around a central activity space that links the learning environments across both floors, so children can move freely between experiences while still belonging to one community. What was a house now reads, at a child’s scale, as a place to explore.
Carefully planned learning zones give each kind of activity its own setting. Furniture arrangements, cosy corners, and integrated storage shape spaces for creativity, quiet learning, imaginative play, and working together. Natural materials and vibrant colour keep the rooms warm and stimulating, and everything is sized for small children — encouraging independence and making the spaces intuitive to use.
Learning carries on outdoors, where vegetable gardens, sand play, musical walls, water-play features, and storytelling spaces invite sensory, hands-on discovery, with safety carefully built into every part. Completed in 2021, Teddy Bear Nursery shows how a former home can become a joyful, child-centred place to learn.
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