Uncovering placemaking needs with(in) a kindergarten community: a cross-disciplinary approach to participatory design

Abstract

IntroductionThe design of early childhood education and care facilities faces the double challenge of creating a stimulating environment for young children and a supportive workplace for staff. The existing body of research suggests that placemaking strategies serve both requirements. A promising approach to meet placemaking needs is the participation of future occupants in the building design.MethodsWe pursued a participatory design study with the community of an Austrian kindergarten aiming to inform the future building renovation. We combined novel cultural fiction probes methods with conventional inquiry methods to gather information from children and teachers about their experience of the built environment. Using thematic and content analyzes we explored placemaking needs from different epistemic perspectives and converged findings through iterative exchange.ResultsReturns of children and teachers were interconnected and complementary. From a design-oriented perspective, children’s experience of place was relatable to spatial, temporo-spatial, and acoustic qualities as well as control needs. From a human-centered perspective, teachers’ experience of place was relatable to the needs of feeling embedded, protected, enacted, and socially connected. The converged findings revealed dynamic placemaking processes involving the elements of space, time, and control at different levels.DiscussionCross-disciplinary collaboration and research consolidation brought forth valuable insights on supportive structures for both children and teachers, facilitated timely knowledge transfer, and converted into design solutions that foster enacted placemaking. Albeit general transferability is limited, findings are interpretable within a solid framework of existing theories, concepts and evidence.

Lived experience in human-building interaction (HBI): an initial framework

“…In our participatory design approach we deployed an adapted version of cultural probes (Gaver et al, 1999) for the children and a contextual inquiry in the form of interviews, surveys, and a building tour performed with the teachers and the headmistress of the kindergarten. The consolidated findings from our probes returns and the contextual inquiry, which we wrote about in another publication (Economidou et al, 2023), revealed the children's need for controlling their environment through placemaking and for noise mitigating strategies. These findings formed the inspiration for performing a set of PD workshops which resulted in the idea of an artefact-based HBI prototype that would support children's place-making actions and combat noise in their kindergarten environment.…”

Rethinking the designs of private spaces in kindergartens through the views of children

“…The necessity of children’s participation in research processes for the development of educational environments that support early childhood development and reveal the opportunities they desire has been emphasized in several studies (Hart, 1994; Kim, 2017; Kjørholt, 2002). However, it has also been criticized that there has been little research into listening to children’s voices to improve the spatial quality of these environments (Clark, 2010; Economidou et al, 2023; Ghaziani, 2008).…”