The Design of Spaces for Young Children and Preschool in Emergency

• Main Author: Nicoletta Sorrentino
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens Institute for Education and Research 2019-10-01
• Series: Athens Journal of Architecture
• Online Access: https://www.athensjournals.gr/architecture/2019-5-4-1-Sorrentino.pdf

The paper aims to show how to develop and treat spaces devoted to childhood and the restarting of teaching activities after disasters, in situations of emergencies, particularly reflecting the needs of early childhood age. This choice is motivated by the fact that this early stage of age requires diverse and adequate devices, especially for what concerns the constitution of the environment where they live and experience extraordinary conditions. The essay will present, through quantitative evaluation of the impact of disasters on minors, the significance and the consequences of traumatic events on children, as expressed in their way of behaving and reacting both personally and within the relation with the community. The research methodology, progressing from a general presentation of the psychological facets and focusing on the dynamics of relationships with adults and other children, follows the narrative of the features of the correct preschool environment. As a result, the research depicts the peculiarities of proper strategies for mitigation and intervention in the occurrence of disasters, as how expressed by NGOs. Furthermore, the essays tend to become more technical, examining the state of the art and indicating good practices of design for childhood purposes and preschools; on the other hand, less addressed designs, actually widely used will be compared. In the end, the paper will show some concept designs, applicable to different contexts and landscapes, on the Italian territory, that for their inner peculiarities could be used as early age children school. On the basis of what will be presented in the research, a design process has been constituted for achieving valuable answers, coherent with the theme under examination, also applicable once stopped the emergence and in extraordinary conditions. The attention focuses on the interior and furniture design and its setting, that in most cases are not enough cared, while for the external housing structures the concepts offer different solutions, also considering products already part of the mass production.