Thesis Boards

Program:

Research suggests that the first five years of life are critical for building the foundation for children’s success throughout their schooling and life. Throughout these first years of life there are a number of essential windows of opportunity during which certain kinds of stimuli are needed to help the brain develop and maintain critical connections necessary for learning. What is it that draws a child to a place? What is it that creates the magnetic energy that draws one into a space?

This energy stems from a symbiotic relationship, a flow of spaces that work together harmoniously. Symbiotic relationships change how groups and how individuals work together causing a powerful connection between individuals and the spaces that they occupy.

The concept is to design a space for children that enhances learning, healing and play through interaction and movement.

This project is a unification of a Child Development Center and a Therapeutic Center. Children who are emotionally disturbed and suffer from bearevement ; a parent’s death, a broken home or child abuse are given therapy by a specialist, and also given a chance to interact with other children as a form of therapy.

The Site:

In 1971, when Franzen J Ulrich built the First Unitarian Church, he chose to respect the cornice lines of the neighbourhood. The First Unitarian Church acts as a good neighbor by keeping itsel as low as the surrounding houses, and by growing laterally instead. One cannot help but be impressed by its series of towers. The structure has staggered blocks of space, with towers and varied heights, and light admitted by clerestories and by slanted windows, that have something of a mansard effect.

The Concept:

The concept behind my thesis is to create a space that enhances healing, learning and play through interaction and movement. The idea was to not let children spend their whole day behind walls. Thus, during space planning classrooms and admin spaces were distributed throughout the space. Special areas under the windows allowed children to spend hours out of their classrooms and enjoy the mansard natural light. Not only was there interaction and movement within the space, but also interaction between indoors and outdoors. Interaction and movement was further enhanced with the help of a partition, that visually seperated the classrooms from the rest of the space. In order to avoid a static corridor, the partition had inbuilt benches, right under the clerestories.