A kids drawing of their dream school is made into reality as a "soaring ark"

   

The 'Rainbow Ark Soaring in the Sky' school designed by Japanese architect Kikuma Watanabe was brought to fruition to alleviate poverty in the Sangkhlaburi Village in Thailand.

Due to a desire to a provide a better future for the children, the village teacher asked the children to draw the school of their dreams. One, a flying ship, was then translated into the design.



The design is comprised of solid round 'earth bag' volumes on the ground and a floating, light steel and bamboo structure with a grass roof above.



The earthbag domes conceived as "launching pads" that supply the ship with the energy of mother earth.

The upper structure as a ship that is soaring in the sky.



The school has become a successful place for the community to enjoy studying, playing, and praying everyday.



The round volumes create a sense of comfort, security and warmth, and are used as a prayer dome, entrance dome and classroom. The upper "soaring" spaces used as a Buddhist room and classroom.

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A revitalised school and nursery is integrated with a public sports arena and auditorium - becoming the "beating heart" of the neighbourhood

 

When a design for a new sports arena using an old war bunker was deduced insufficient in size, the hunt for a new site began. This led to the idea to integrate the new sports arena with the redesign or of a tired old school and nursery, Ny Krohnborg.



Designed by Rambøll Norge + Arkitektgruppen Cubus AS and located centrally in the neighbourhood of Løvstakken, Norway, the fusion of sports and cultural arena with a school and nursery provides a new "hub" for social integration and activity whilst revitalising and giving new energy and optimism to the community.



The existing site occupies a tight and inclined space between two streets. In order to fit the new sports hall, stage, musical facilities and cafe, the school yard was excavated and the new facilities inserted below. Enabling the neighbourhood activities to break out onto the street edge.

The original school building was a listed historic building. Therefore the new design works to respect the character of the old, whilst infusing it with new life. Natural stone, slate roof tiles, small pane windows, cast iron details and panelled doors are maintained. 

Subtle changes include allowances for better natural light, increased functionality and new doors and windows between the classrooms.

The new structure however, is a stark contrast to the old, expressing lightness, colour and a lively energetic form.

The circulation within the school/cultural centre was given serious attention and thought. While the original school provided narrow flights of dark stairs purely for circulation, the new design employs a number of circulation spaces - lifts, ramps and stairs with improved lighting, visual signage and colour coding.

The large atrium space serves as a central point not only connecting one space to another, but as a comfortable and lively space to hang out and take in the hub of activity.



A major aspect of the design was for the architecture to work seamlessly with the landscape. The school yard located atop the cultural centre cleverly breaks out onto a central landscaped courtyard facing away from the street below. The many ramps, levels, textures and undulating forms cater for a number of play activity - skating, running, cycling, climbing and acrobatics.

Ny Krohnborg is an example of how a school and nursery might serve more than just the children. Rather creating a place which welcomes the entire community.

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A book that promotes a new (fun) way of learning for all ages

    

'Learn for Life: New Architecture for New Learning' is a colourful new book featuring a range of architecture that exhibits the new wave of educational and working environments embracing play.



Operating on the premise that life is an ongoing education, this collection of kindergartens, universities, workplaces, libraries and even installations show us that "work" spaces (where we spend much of our time) need not be drab, but inspire creativity and a sense of fun.



For example, BAMscape designed by Faulders Studio is a public seating environment located within the Berkeley Art Museum atrium gallery. Designed with wireless Internet and integrated outlets, the space encourages a range of activities, such as individual work, a place of meeting/social engagement or relaxation.

The Hjerring Central Library (above) designed by Rosan Bosch & Rune Fjord reflects our changing methods of acquiring knowledge, the design focusing on encouraging engagement and participation. A "communication structure" or red band, twists and winds its way through the library, breaking through walls, floors and bookcases.

It is an architecture that acknowledges that by designing different types of space, such as those conducive to small or solo occupancy as well as that which facilitates opportunities for collaboration can result in better learning and working outcomes. 

For example the above school, Orestad Gymnasium in Copenhagen is the first of its kind to be designed to foster collaboration and informal study zones. Interconnected vertical and horizontal zones enables different teaching and learning spaces to overlap and interact with no distinct borders. The rotation of each floor plate opens a part of every floor to the vertical central atrium, expressing the school's ethos of providing an inter-disciplinary education.

Ring Around a Tree designed by Tezuka Architects is a "classroom without furniture", an addition to Fuji Kindergarten. With many ceiling heights being just tall enough for a child to pass through and platforms located at varying climbing levels, the design puts the physical needs of the child at the forefront.



Colour is a major theme throughout the book. Elap Arquitectos’ Nursery 8 units in Vélez-Rubio, Spain (above) is a world of light and colour. Walls, windows, floors and furniture are mixed and matched in heady shades to stimulate minds and create a sense of fun. While circular windows tinted emerald, aqua, rose and tangerine stream a rainbow of sunlight across the interior.

Kekec Kindergarten designed by Architektura Jure Kotnik is an addition to an existing kindergarten. The new structure tends to the original kindergarten's lack of play equipment, creating a playful slatted vertical facade.

A childcare centre can also provide public amenities, such as the Ecoplois Plaza in Madrid (above) serving the community even outside of day care hours and vibrantly regenerating an area of urban sprawl.



The Geopark designed by Helen & Hard is situated in the heart of Norway's oil industry and utilises recycled petroleum related elements, transforming the formerly abandoned site into a bustling urban space. The waterfront park accommodates a range of activities - biking, skating, climbing, exhibition, sports and relaxation; the topography reflecting the geological layers of the field.



A playground that also doubles as a beautiful sculpture/installation is the Woods of Net in Ninotaira, Japan. Tezuka architects and artist Toshiko Macadam collaborated to create a hand-knitted land of colour and form for children to crawl and jump on.

Located in a rural area lacking basic hygienic amenities, the Split Bathhouse in China serves as a community centre for the surrounding region. Conceived as an incubator of social, cultural, sanitary, environmental and economical change, two building's - one for women and one for the men face a communal greenhouse. Encouraging public expression and a playful relationship with the architecture, the exterior walls are covered with blackboards.

The book offers a lovely snapshot of inspiring architecture that is encompassing the progressive early childhood pedagogy of individual and collaborative work and play - offering freedom and choice and encouraging creativity and imagination.

Via Gestalten.

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Interactive Skin - a wall installation that invites imaginative play

 
The best thing about the internet is connecting with like-minded and inspirational people.

Bree Angela (designer and fabric artist) recently got in touch with me and kindly shared her latest experience in collaborating with artist Nick Cave and Faust Design Studio to create the 'Second Skin' exhibit held at the Denver Art Museum.



Bree's experiences as a designer and art educator for young children has led to a passion for creating more transformative spaces for children to explore their creative and imaginative capacities. I admire her passion and her perceptive response below.

1.Where did the inspiration for the idea of an interactive skin come from?

Nick Cave is known for his intricately sculpted Soundsuits. And, as Cave refers to them, they are "armor or second skin," they seem to protect the wearer's identity, gender, race, and class with their bright colors and wild character. One's identity is safe behind the costume giving the wearer the permission to express themselves freely without judgement. They become someone- or something-else. This was the inspiration for the 'Second Skin' interactive exhibit. Participants could decorate, tear down, and re-decorate their own Soundsuits.

Nick Cave's 'Sound Suits'

2.What did you learn while bringing the idea to fruition?

I learned that felt is a fabulous material! Kids really connect to felt and the felt board concept! There is such a familiar and wonderful tactile experience when playing in a natural soft environment. The process of choosing the best way for the children to interact in this space intuitively turned out to be an important learning experience. Keeping the pieces open ended and reversible with no extra attaching elements or particular order allowed for more energy to go in to the creations themselves. Especially, after absorbing the 'Sojourn' exhibit, which was incredibly beautiful and quite ornate! The simplicity of this space, although colorful and filled with unusual forms, allowed children and their families to express what they just experienced without any rules or limitations. It was a blank felt canvas!



3.What do you believe to be the most overlooked aspect in regards to designing for children?

I think that there is sometimes too much information, direction, and maybe too much expectation happening in designing for children. By that I mean, there needs to be more open ended design, where imagination creates the space, not vice versa. If you take a look around at some of these designs its like, ok...here is what I want you to do, here is what I want you to learn. Its already layed out in a way where the kids can see A to B. What if there were more spaces that allowed for kids to think out of the box, to explore imagination itself? I think designers should keep that in mind. Allow the children to participate in the design of the space. This encourages leadership, self expression, and endless imagination.



4.How do you think we can raise awareness of the importance of creating imaginative spaces for children in the public realm?

Creating an awareness for public imaginative spaces for children is slowly, but surely, starting to unfold. We are in a time in history where we, like the Reggio Emelia folks, can look around and see that in order to change the future for the better we need to put love and energy into the children and the way they learn. I'm hoping that the Education System and the Art Industry can continue to brainstorm and collaborate to really focus on the potential of children's imagination and learning capacities. I'm also hoping there is more exposure on artists such as Nick Cave that are community driven and act as a vessel for others, especially children, to explore their creative potentials. The more conversations about people like this will spark awareness, which will spark the movers and the shakers to bring new ideas to the public.

The exhibition installation runs until the end of March. For more information, see Denver Art Museum.

Images via Faust.

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Colour in wallpaper!

   

What a fantastic idea. Designed by Jon Burgerman (via).

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Planting ideas, growing minds - is the idea behind toy brand "seedling"

 

The ethos behind NZ-owned and based toy company Seedling reflects the Kindergarten pedagogy that children learn through "play" or by partaking in creative activity. Alternatively, founder and owner Phoebe Hayman stresses that every child has ideas waiting to be explored, which echoes Reggio's philosophy of the "rich child" that has "many languages".

Founded in 2006, Phoebe being a hands-on Playcentre mum noticed that children if left to their own devices, preferred real tools over toys every time. Suddenly noticing a gap in the market: "You used to be able to go out into the neighbourhood with your friends and climb trees or whatever. But it's not like that now" (Mindfood, April 2011: p49). Thus Phoebe set out to create a series of products that provided children (and parents) with the tools to realise their creative potential in a single neat pack.

What started as four kits based on cooking, gardening, painting and outdoor exploration, has quickly expanded to over 250 products for a range of ages - from a kit making baby hand prints to a kit for designing a solar-powered plane.

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A Reggio inspired centre in Australia considers the experiences of the child in more ways than one

Designed by Towill Design Group, Reggio-inspired Brisbane-based St Pauls Kindergarten derives out of the centres' ethos that celebrates the child and his or hers thoughts, ideas and way of perceiving the world.


Every design decision considers the child.

The architects not only worked with the staff when tackling the new build, but involved the children who explored ideas through drawing.



The children's drawn ideas for their new EC centre are displayed on the windows, which wrap around the entire building.

The centre is deliberately situated within close proximity to the Primary School, thus easing the transition for the child from kindergarten to school.



The classroom employes a number of techniques to delineate the space and it's functional use. A large circular mat encourages the children to sit and play together informally, while tables are set up which focus on a particular task. The space is kept flexible with moveable furniture and partitions.

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A surving relic of the 1900s progressives: Preshill School

 
Founded in Melbourne, Australia in the early 1930s, the privately run Preshill - The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School is a surviving experiment in progressive education.

The school started as a small cottage founded by a woman called Margaret Lyttle and moved to its current site in 1938. At the time the structure was a fairly typical upper middle class suburban house. However, many physical changes occurred over the next 44 years.

This extract from an article in the design observer by a long-time member of the school community sums up the school's somewhat contradictory formal and informal growth, resulting in a rich learning environment;

"It's the informality of it, coupled with complexity. Change in the school is almost always organic... There's a sense of evolution, of things being updated. If there's a tree, a building will twist itself around it...The school seems to have succeeded in allowing what was there 50 years ago to still be apparent". 

Formal changes include the numerous classrooms, a hall, later retreat rooms and lastly - an upper floor library; each of which required conscious thought and planning. Yet additional to this have been the every-day informal (or even subconscious) changes: Plants, winding pathways, built huts, play equipment, animal pens, and even an underground air-raid shelter, which later became underground huts and mud pits. All a result of the ebb and flow of every-day school life.

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Help Norman Brosterman republish 'Inventing Kindergarten'

 
Norman Brosterman's book 'Inventing Kindergarten' was a key source and inspiration for me when writing 'The Architecture of Early Childhood'. And now he needs our help.

See his video (above) and go to Kickstarter to help Brosterman fund and bring back a fine and still very much relevant revelation into the revolutionary Froebel 'Kindergarten' education.

The book, illustrated beautifully (like the above image shows) tells the compelling story of the birth of the 'kindergarten' and draws links between it's education methods and the following influential 'modern' era. In fact, giving evidence that suggests Kindergarten was a key driver in providing the inspiration and tools for much of the modern art and architecture to be realised (such as Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture).

The book is interesting, captivating and beautifully presented and written. I wish Brosterman the best of luck in reaching his goal. 

Via Robbin Brosterman and Kickstarter.

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Innovative educational concepts must be coupled with designs that are inviting, stimulating and versatile. They should offer places to learn, play, or escape the fray

   
An excellent introduction (above) to Detail's latest issue DETAIL Concept 3/2013 which focuses on the architecture for children. Exploring pedagogy, architectural typologies and contemporary exemplary case studies – the projects range from small facilities located in garden settings to large school buildings in a dense urban fabric.

I MUST get my hands on a copy - in the mean time here is a snippet view of what's inside....

 
The cover (left) illustrates an array of school spatial arrangement - ranging from sporadic or town-like compositions, dynamic or regular linear arrangements or with classrooms surrounding a central core.

Introduction

The introduction (right) describes traditional school design which follows a strict standardized approach (of functional zones, circulation, safety and fire regulations etc) rather than exploring spatial and aesthetic qualities or the influence of colour and light on children's learning experiences; an approach which leads to rather dull and monotonous environments.

Today, education pedagogy is moving away from frontal forms of tuition and focusing on more autonomous, interactive and collaborative learning processes, a characteristic of the revolutionary and radical early childhood pedagogies. Today, schools are beginning to take a leaf out of the early childhood facilities - providing spaces that inspire physical, imaginative and collaborative learning activities.

 
Kindergarten and Primary School in Saint-Denis, designed by AAVP Architects.


Materiality and colour

Above is a Kindergarten and Primary School in Saint-Denis, which is situated on a former factory site in the north of Paris. In contrast to this somewhat neglected district, the school, with its golden outer face of perforated sheet aluminum and a cladding of larch strips and turned wooden members, resembles a precious jewellery box. The architects wished to stress the social significance of the structure through a striking, carefully designed facade that would recall oriental-Arabian mashrabiyas.

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Svet vmes = utilising the spaces in-between

 
I love the philosophy behind svet vmes, a young architectural practice that transform poorly designed educational and working environments; thus utilising the spaces in-between.

I have selected a few of my favourite projects to showcase and was fortunate enough to interview the group, who have shared with us their inspiration, passion and experiences of designing for our younger population.

INTERACTIVE STREET, Šenčur Primary School, Šenčur, Slovenia, 2011

At the Šenčur Primary School, Šenčur, Slovenia, 2011, the young architects have re-designed this boring (and rather depressing) school corridor with a colour scheme (the colours also giving each classroom a unique identity), and fun interactive components for climbing on and sitting in; thus offering the children a variety of play - individual and social experiences.

UNDERGROUND CAVE, Ledina Kindergarten, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2012

From storage space to a magical underground cave, this project works within the existing and rather constrained space using colour, texture, light and a multi-faceted form to create an exciting play landscape for the children attending this kindergarten. The new environment, with it's gloomy shadows, lights, secret corners and steep inclines encourages the children's imagination and tests their physical capabilities.

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Hospital art injects a bit of life into sterile hospital spaces

 
It is great to witness the long overdue recognition of the role that art, design and architecture can play in forming positive spatial experiences in spaces that otherwise can be marked with trauma.

When Great Ormond Hospital in the UK ran a competition asking artists to transform a new hospital wing with an interactive artwork, the winner Jason Bruges Studio responded with the idea for a nature trail - a 50m long artwork displaying animated animals on 70 specially programmed LED panels.

The animal magic comes to life as the patient starts his or her journey to theatre by triggering sensors embedded in the ceiling. All of a sudden frogs, deer, hedgehogs, horses and birds appear on the wallpaper.  

 The result is an installation that captures the imagination, lighting up the faces of the children and improving the otherwise sometimes difficult experience of the hospital treatment.

 

Bruges was inspired by memories of his own childhood; "The idea came from remembering walks in my childhood...spotting and following things, those stolen glances and glimpses, the excitement of stopping at hides. I was trying to recreate this with the idea of digital lookout points along the corridor."

Via The Guardian.

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A wonderful graphic that shows quality EC Education means a brighter future

 


Via Education News.

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Architect David Businelli strives to "pay attention to the visual horizon of the child"

    

Writing about Studio 16's St Clare's Parish Child Care Center (below), David Businelli of Studio 16 recently got in touch with me.

Remarking on the number of facilities that are supposedly designed for children that in fact aren't, I asked David if he could answer a few questions of what he has learnt from his experiences designing facilities for children.

David responded thoughtfully, particularly emphasizing the importance of the child's perspective of space; to respond to the child's viewpoint - of scale, circulation and comfort. Indeed aspects which I believe have been under-valued and therefore realized in many designed child-care centres.

The visual horizon of the child. Diagram author's own.

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It takes a community to look after a child

A great initiative, Buddy Day that was run in Hamilton on the 16th of November reminds us all that 'it takes a community to look after a child' - raising awareness and initiating conversations about child abuse and how we might begin to stop it.

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Learning by doing

 
The quote for this week (seen right) is one from the famous progressive educationalist John Dewey (1859-1952). It goes:

“Before the child goes to school, he learns with his hand, eye and ear, because they are organs of the process of doing something from which meaning results. The boy flying a kite has to keep his eye on the kite, and has to note the various pressures of the string on his hand. His senses are avenues of knowledge not because external facts are somehow ‘conveyed’ to the brain, but because they are used in doing something with a purpose.” ( John Dewey, ‘Democracy and Education’, 1915)

Left: A book by Lauren N. Tanner - 'Dewey's Laboratory School - Lessons for Today'; and right: the Marin Montessori School designed by Pfau Long Architecture.

In 1895, Dewey set up his 'laboratory school' where he tested his ideas on 'learning by doing'. His early learning section (which he named 'sub-primary') was based on activities around family life and that "tapped in" to the child's natural interests. A popular pedagogical theme today that was however rather extraordinary at the time.

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Feel inside (and stuff like that)

   


It might not be relevant to the architecture of early childhood. But it is great.

The hilarious kiwi duo Flight of the Conchords succeed in bringing together the ideas of children to create a charity song for red nose day. I highly recommend you check it out.

On another note, I will be back with more posts soon. So watch this space.

Jess

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