Does size matter?”Considering the importance of size and scale in educational environments

Abstract

When creating environments for children, adults inevitably face the question of scale. What are the needs of the users? How high or wide should rooms be to instill a feeling of security and a sense of being sheltered by their small users? Does the provision of spaces suitable for children call for miniature environments or does the possibility to experience and explore spaces and furnishings at a variety of scales offer an important learning opportunity for children? How can the potential of educational buildings to function as a three-dimensional textbook and as a teaching and learning tool be fully embraced (Taylor, 2009)? Architecture acts on our senses in many different ways: We do not only see the space, we feel it with all of our senses. We hear the different resonances or echoes depending on the size of the space and the materials used to build and finish it. We understand the distinctive tectonic properties of materials, their size and functions. These are important experiences for children who explore their world. Perception is an active procedure involving all of our senses, while the brain simultaneously processes numerous pieces of information (Guski, 2000). All this creates an overall understanding of the situation in time and space and trains the child's skills. Especially at a young age vestibular, kinesthetic, and somatovisceral senses mature (Walden, 2009). In an ideal world, every school and kindergarten would provide a balanced level of stimulation while reducing stress factors and disturbances to a minimum and allowing the users to physically use, explore and appropriate their learning environment. This study will introduce several examples of schools and kindergartens where the architecture successfully adds to the curriculum in a way that the space helps to develop all human senses in the children and their perception of scale in the environments they are using.