Brella Combines Child Care and Coworking in Los Angeles

In an app-driven society, you can instantly summon almost any service on your phone—quick Amazon purchases, a car through a ride-sharing platform, or food delivery to your door. Today, convenience and flexibility are key for consumers. But many industries still lag behind when it comes to putting control in the hands of their customers.

That’s why California business women Darien Williams and Melanie Wolff launched Brella, an on-demand child care center in Los Angeles, as a solution to the pain points of daycare the two experienced themselves as mothers of young children.

“Every other facet of our lives has become more fluid and more accessible except child care,” says Williams, noting that traditional, fully-licensed programs often require monthly or annual contracts and advanced notice for scheduling, while businesses that offer on-site and drop-in babysitting as an auxiliary service (such as gyms) may "sacrifice quality of care."

Located in The Runway Playa Vista shopping center on the ground floor of 12746 W. Jefferson Blvd (a property owned by Invesco and DJM Capital Partners), the on-demand child care center opened its doors in November. Through a customized app, families looking for child care can book Brella by the hour, on-demand, whether its for one hour or the whole week.

Together with local firm Project M Plus and Yasmeen Khan of Rectangle Design Studio, co-founder Williams, an architect herself, sought to design a space that stood out from other daycare centers in the market, marrying the needs of both parents and children in a space that’s simple and modern, functional, and imaginative.

“It was a fun challenge to create a child care facility that does not feel institutional, while still meeting at the Title 22 California State child care licensing space requirements,” says Williams.

Starting from an empty 8,060-square-foot “cold, dark shell” as Williams describes it, the project team had to build out the space from scratch. “The landlord provided the HVAC units, but we had to do everything else from systems to building out the interior walls, finishes, lighting, and more,” she explains.

What resulted was a warm, inviting space for Brella patrons and families.

“It feels welcoming, calming, intriguing, elevated, and appropriately stimulating without feeling overly "childish" or "diminutive,” says Williams.

In order to amplify daylight within the deep footprint of the space, the team located highest use classrooms along the storefront and continued to optimize natural light through a series of arches and vaulted passages.

An initial large archway leads visitors to the check-in area and welcome room, and then opens to an expansive playground area.

Children are then led though the center’s three classrooms—a creative playroom, art lab, and library—in addition to an infant room and nap room and a gross motors skills and active play area.

Following the hourly model that Brella operates on, children also rotate from classroom to classroom on the hour to create a seamless transition for kids arriving or leaving.

“What’s really exciting about Brella is that instead of being bound to a specific classroom potentially for the whole day, children are actually moving through the space and through different immersive environments that cover everything from story-telling, art and science to music and imaginative play,” says Williams.

Looking to steer clear of typical institutional color palates, the project team led by Project M Plus’ interior designers looked at the brain science behind color perception, selecting colors that inspire and “support the appropriate energy levels within each space,” while warm wood materials serve myriad functions—durability, sustainability, and a comforting touch. The team chose gender neutral furniture pieces and accessories, and designed each space to reflect its use case—playful patterns in the Forbo linoleum flooring in the gross motor area create a vibrant zone for play; interactive features, like the magnetic walls in the drop off and gross motor area, and oversized cushions that can be stacked and rearranged to provoke new uses or circulation paths, provide both an aesthetic and functional learning tool.

Responding to direct demand from parents, many of whom work remotely full-time or a few days during the week, the founders incorporated The Study, a parent workspace with six individual desks and three, four-person meeting rooms.

Space in the The Study is reserved on the same screen as the child care bookings to keep the process streamlined, and can be booked by the hour, which is not the case for many coworking facilities which may have day passes or require monthly contracts.

“We're seeing parents using the space for private phone calls or to get a few hours of quiet work done, plus we've seen study groups meeting there, and coaching sessions for example,” says Williams.

Roughly about 500 square feet of Brella is dedicated to The Study. In addition to the on-demand coworking space, Brella also offers other amenities for the parents, including an enrichment studio, a family lounge, expert-led classes, food and drink options, and community programming and events.

“Within a mixed use real estate context, this is a game changer because child care is a shadow market to every other use here—fitness, food and beverage, residential, and commercial office space,” says Williams. “Child care is such a complimentary use, and this location is reflective of Brella’s goal to reposition child care as a highly visible anchor amenity within real estate development.”