Designing Spaces for Early Childhood Development
Contemporary pedagogy contends that children's growth and development takes place through experiences. This book is intended to uncover the relationship between child development and early childhood space design through an exciting selection of kindergarten, childcare, and nursery designs from around the world, each of which provides authentic, stimulating, and meaningful environments full of rich and active hands-on experiences to facilitate children's access to nature and human connection as they discover the world and assimilate everything they need to grow and thrive. Rather than merely the design of preschool buildings, the book focuses on the quality of the space. A brief editor's note is given for each case to highlight the important elements of the design, use, and function that help children to shape their own personal curriculum.
A short interview - a dialogue with the architect - is also offered after some of the projects for readers to gain greater insight into the ideas and processes of the architects. Highly illustrated with stunning full-colour throughout, this book hopes to spark the design inspirations of kindergarten architects, interior designers, outdoor playground designers, and child educators on how to design a quality space for children.
Jure Kotnik is an education architecture specialist, Ph.D. in educational hybrid design from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. As the founder of Arhitektura Jure Kotnik, he has designed kindergartens, schools and children's playground projects in many countries. As the author of several books and articles on educational architecture and design, Kotnik also works as an educational architecture consultant for various international clients such as The World Bank, Council of Europe development Bank, Steve Jobs School and others. In 2012, he was appointed as visiting professor at Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris. In addition, Kotnik was bestowed the Trimo International Award 2006, Plecnik Medal Award 2008, Timber Icon Award 2016, and 2016 Europe 40 under 40-Europe's most important and emerging young architects' and designers' award.