An Interiors Approach to Designing Spaces for Children
Author
Jenna Hays and Fabio Arias
Designing spaces for children invites a playful, imaginative perspective that puts adult designers in the shoes of the young mind. While designing for children's spaces, Interior Designers incorporate developmental psychology, inclusivity considerations, and cultural competency. In this piece, we explore our approach to designing spaces for children and the role that interior design can play in elevating a child’s experience of their environment.
Working with clients to define their needs is critical to SEA's process. Several factors can influence these needs, including the age ranges of children, the purpose of the space, cultural context, and behavioral considerations. We’ve found success in framing our interior design approach to children’s spaces using 4 design principles: Sense of Place, Well-being, Sensory Needs, and Versatility. We outline these principles and how we apply them in the following sections, and while we focus primarily on educational spaces in the narrative, the same concepts can be applied to any place meant to be welcoming to children.
Sense of Place
Ensuring an interior design doesn’t feel displaced from its context is key when designing spaces for children—we want children to have a positive intuitive reaction that this place is for them and that they are safe. Children, particularly young children, are still developing their ability to confidently navigate the world, and by incorporating characteristics and connections to their immediate community within a space, we provide them with a familiar experience from which to build. This concept is particularly salient in educational spaces—if children are uncomfortable or anxious, they will often have difficulty learning. Using design to create a sense of place is a method of reducing anxiety, ultimately making a joyful environment that facilitates learning and growth.
“Our approach to developing a sense of place includes conducting historical research for the site, learning about the area’s cultural identities, and determining the notable elements of the region’s natural landscape.”
Our approach to developing a sense of place includes conducting historical research for the site, learning about the area’s cultural identities, and determining the notable elements of the region’s natural landscape. From these studies, interior design can derive meaning. For example, in space planning, classrooms can be oriented within the building to mimic the local community. Organizing smaller groups of classrooms around a shared common space to form neighborhoods within the school, and then naming each neighborhood after a local landmark, can be an effective method. Mirroring a child’s real-life community experience within their school can instill confidence and cater to learning and development.
Artwork and interior finishes can also help develop a sense of place. Culturally-responsive artwork that features imagery, color, and history tied to a community adds vibrancy and meaning. Similarly, selecting materials representative of the building's location—i.e. basalt in Central Oregon, brick in Portland, Port Orford Cedar on the Oregon coast—further connects the interior design and placemaking. It’s important for us to create a sense of place that defines itself while still being a part of its community.
Case Study: One Community Health Hood River identified the need for children-focused zones in the lobbies to support families in the community. Playful built-ins engage the users in these areas, and with the vibrant local culture and youthful audience in mind, branding is inserted that uses graphics and critical wayfinding signage. Materials like wood and stone contextualize the interiors within the Hood River area, as does the photography throughout the space that features nearby places. The result is a modern and inviting atmosphere pushing the boundaries of a typical sterile medical aesthetic and offering respite and engagement for the children who visit.
Well-being
Well-being is carefully considered and holistically integrated into our spaces, and our approach applies the principles of trauma-informed and universal design. In children’s spaces, this integration is scaled, ensuring that no matter the age, every person feels safe and supported while using the space. What this can look like are spatial layouts, sightlines, and wayfinding that are accessible no matter your height or reading ability, furniture arrangements that facilitate choice and connection, and adding visual interest that is right-sized for developmental stages. Substantial research has been and continues to be performed and published in this subject area by the Trauma-informed Design Society.
Feeling safe is crucial to learning. When the "fight or flight" response is triggered, children are neurologically hindered from absorbing educational information. Interior design can approach this by addressing a child’s feeling of physical, psychological, and community safety. The entry sequence to the building is secure and inviting, circulation paths are intuitive and open, public spaces are accessible and comfortable, and some spaces are acoustically and visually private, in case a quiet place for decompression is needed.
Responsible material sourcing and establishing clearly defined sustainability goals are also imperative to a safer interior environment prioritizing well-being. When considering spaces for children in particular, we understand that they are growing and developing, and may be more susceptible to harmful products. Ensuring materials are US or locally made, free of phthalates and PVC, including partial or fully-recyclable materials, and transparency with the manufacturing process and its carbon impact are several sustainable measures designers should include. Materials and surfaces should also be durable and easy to maintain, streamlining the cleaning process and standing up to the wear and tear that comes with ample activity and use.
Case Study: Personal relationships and connections to the community beyond Rose Villa Senior Living informed our design approach to the campus’s new child development center. The center anchors the ground floor of the north end of Schroeder Lofts and provides childcare for up to 36 children. The interior is light and bright, and offers a range of larger, reconfigurable spaces, quiet nooks, and smaller classrooms ideal for reading circles and more focused learning. The program connects Rose Villa’s senior residents with children and parents every day as they access the center through the main lobby, play outside in the adjacent playgrounds, and volunteer in the classrooms. Research indicates that intergenerational programs can be beneficial to child development, ease social isolation, and increase the well-being of older adults.
Sensory Needs
In spaces designed for children, one of our biggest challenges as Interior Designers is striking a balance between spaces that are not overstimulating, but still stimulating enough to spark ideas and engagement. We believe that colors, textures, and activity zones can be powerful tools in learning settings. We understand that color can be stimulating, which can be a positive or a negative result, depending on the context. Studies like “The Impact of Colors on Learning” suggest that greens and blues have a calming effect and can increase creativity, and warmer colors like red, orange, and yellow can increase energy and excitement. To this end, we are diligent in understanding a space’s purpose as that allows us to implement the placement of color strategically.
As the design community learns more about differing sensory needs, we see how the built environment can respond inclusively by empowering users with choice in their experience. A school library, for example, may present collaborative tables that support groups of children reading together and also offer reading nooks for just one child to sit if reprieve is helpful for concentration. We also frequently incorporate creative studio spaces in classroom layouts that support arts and crafts of all kinds, designating a space for self-expression that is not limiting.
Lighting is another sensory element that we consider. Typical fluorescent lighting used in classrooms is often too harsh because it is not diffused enough, or the temperature color is too warm or too cool. Poor lighting conditions are very noticeable to sensory-sensitive children, and there are simple ways to address this challenge by offering alternative lighting or lighting controls. For example, instead of the direct overhead lighting turned on all the time, we can incorporate task and accent lamping around the classroom to provide more subtle lighting. We can also integrate LED lighting that is zoned and adjustable so staff can choose the amount of light in a given area and the lighting temperature.
This acoustics-inspired material board demonstrates the opportunities we have as Interior Designers to be thoughtful and creative with our selections while accounting for sensory needs.
Versatility
Designing for versatility is a response beyond standard design practices that allow spaces for children to serve in greater capacities. In early childhood development, children occupy the same classroom all day but are expected to learn and engage differently depending on the subject matter. In this example, we ask ourselves how elements like adaptable furniture, ceiling height and soffit placement, adjustable room partitions, and lighting can be used to delineate spaces within a greater room for different learning experiences.
In K-12, we look at interior design’s role in creating versatility for places like gymnasiums, which are often used for sports, physical education classes, school formals, assemblies, and even emergency shelters for the greater community. Thoughtful selection and placement of lighting, spatial layout, floor finishes, and integration of AV/technology should be considered.
The integration of technology is not isolated only to large areas like gyms—we’re bringing it into classrooms and other adjunct spaces, too. Technology is making spaces more versatile by allowing users the ability to control sound in certain rooms, integrating daylighting controls into outlet switching, and installing interactive projector screens, to name a few examples.
“Informed design decisions that include versatility increase children’s access to the building's services and ensure they feel acknowledged in an unknown space.”
Incorporating versatility into design elements can contribute to inclusion and accessibility needs as well. Designers should create spaces to be equally accessible to all forms of mobility. We design with the intent to give everyone a chance to interact with the interior architecture without forgoing any particular group of people. Informed design decisions that include versatility increase children’s access to the building's services and ensure they feel acknowledged in an unknown space.
Case Study: The Oregon City Public Library addition and renovation project honors its storied history as a Carnegie Library while providing a modern space suited for future needs. The expansion created significantly more space, enabling an upgraded media collection, multiple meeting rooms, a large community space, a technology and internet services area, a variety of casual seating, a large, dedicated area for the children’s circulation, learning, storytime, and events, a teen library, a laptop lending program, adequate space for self-check and automated material handling, and a maker space. The versatility of many of these spaces, and the integration of technology, is to the benefit of children of all ages as well as adults, an inclusive interior design response to substantial community needs.
In designing spaces for children, we’ve learned to remove our “adult goggles” and adopt their perspective as our own, often challenging typical approaches to be more responsive and inclusive. We’re inspired by the increasing amount of research demonstrating the value our role as Interior Designers can play in creating places tailored to children. We’re also excited to see the local momentum behind creating more engaging and culturally contextualized early childhood development spaces, spurred in part by Oregon’s Preschool for All initiative. SEA’s interior design studio looks forward to continuing to contribute these types of children’s spaces to the built environment, for the benefit of users and our collective community.
About the Authors
Fabio Arias’s interior design work is contextualized to respond to people and place. He takes pride in creating interiors that balance a client’s vision with the needs of the end users and his approach is characterized by creative solutions with longevity. Fabio’s design experience is diverse and includes K-12 education, higher education, workplace, clinical, and multi-family housing. He is adept at translating a concept into reality and applies his understanding of a wide range of typologies to his projects, cross-pollinating ideas to create spaces with impact.
Jenna Hays pursued interior design as a career for its ability to create beautiful spaces that also positively impact the well-being of people in them. She implements her artistic talents and propensity for creative problem-solving to develop designs representative of client goals and inclusive for end-users. Jenna’s previous work as the program manager for a childcare facility informs her design approach for children’s spaces—flexible, welcoming, and comfortable environments that support all students are a must. Jenna’s approach to this work is also informed by having two neurodivergent children which has broadened her perspective on the built environment’s influence on learning.
