For too long, says Eva Lloyd, chief executive of the National Early Years Network (NEYN), public architecture in the UK has been failing young children. In so many schools and nurseries, she says, 'The children have been made to fit in with the environment, instead of the environment being made to fit the children.' She points to windows too high for small children to see out of, cramped, dingy indoor spaces and poor provision for outdoor play.
This state of affairs is lamentable, but hardly surprising - children and design are both traditional blind spots for the British. Although it might now be more accurate to say they used to be. After years of jabbing from lone prophets such as architect Mark Dudek, director of the Education Design Group, the British are beginning to open their eyes. Articles on the subject have begun to proliferate in the architectural and the early years press, influential books such as Dudek's Kindergarten Architecture (published by SPON) have become required reading for nursery managers, and views from both design and childcare camps are being aired at workshops and conferences. There is still much debate about what constitutes the perfect environment for young children, but at least everyone agrees the issue is an important one.
Opportunities offered by Government initiatives have also helped stimulate new interest. The nationwide Sure Start programme will have received more than 1bn in Government investment by 2004, 40 per cent of which is to be spent on capital projects. And last December, the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) announced a national competition to encourage good design in its 900 proposed new neighbourhood nurseries.
In the past, commentators have drawn examples of inspirational early years design mainly from continental sources. They have waxed lyrical about the 'forest' kindergartens of Denmark where pre-fabricated units in woodland serve as home bases for free-ranging children. They have cited the imaginative nurseries of Reggio Emilia in Italy and the architect-designed children's centres of Frankfurt. At NEYN's Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) meeting last summer, designers and early years professionals were stirred into lively debate by a presentation from Dutch architect Ton Venhoeven on the children's castle - complete with ramps, tunnels and raised dens inaccessible to adults - that he created inside the shell of an old three-storey building in the Netherlands town of Soest.
Recently, however, exciting examples of nursery design have started to appear closer to home. The Robert Owen Early Years Centre in Greenwich, South London, opened last year and has been designed with the child's eye view firmly in mind, so even the staircase has two handrails, one for adults, and one for children (see p 8).
The Nightingale Nursery in Hackney, North London, was designed by Somerset-based Mark Muir Architects to help turn around a failing school in a depressed area. Muir was asked to create an environment to stimulate the children's senses, help them learn through play, and provide a contrast with the school's concrete-dominated surroundings. The result is a striking cedar-clad building with a woodland theme. Inside, what could be mundane features have been brightened up with a dash of imagination, such as the firedoor painted with a huge butterfly. When the firedoor is opened, the butterfly's wings open (see p7).
This courageous piece of design has been a great success. Last year, it won a Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Millennium award, and it has raised morale throughout the school. It works because it is based on sincere principles. The unusual features are not gimmicks. They stem from Muir's belief that children's needs should always be at the heart of the design.
The desire to make nursery design more child-centred seems also to underlie recent moves at Jigsaw. The latest addition to the chain, Browns Wood, Milton Keynes, is a modified version of the group's basic design - a central 'playstreet' flanked by children's rooms on one side and utility rooms on the other. However, the nurseries Jigsaw plans to open a few years' time will be radically different, says chief executive Tom Shea. They will, for example, have kitchens with no walls. Indeed, Mr Shea says there will be as few boundaries as possible. Children will have no doors to go through, and rooms will not be dedicated to one use or one age group. The role of the staff will be 'to enable', rather than to control.
Jigsaw's big ideas have their origins in what Shea has dubbed the 'vision group' - a kind of rolling conference on design attended by Jigsaw employees, architects (including Mark Muir) and interior designers. The staff element changes according to the particular issue under discussion. If, for instance, the group is talking about the way babies perceive their surroundings, it will call in a member of staff with the appropriate developmental expertise.
Andrew Spurring of Towle Spurring Hardy Architects, Oxford, has designed several Jigsaw nurseries in the existing house style, including Browns Wood, and is now involved in developing the new concept. 'Jigsaw's basic model has been hugely successful, but the vision group nurseries should be even better,' he says.
Mr Shea implies that Spurring has had to make compromises, but Spurring himself is unequivocal in his enthusiasm for the idea of discussion-led design. 'I am very happy to work with the group,' he says. 'Architects should listen and not just tell.' Jigsaw may be the only big chain to have adopted this collaborative approach, but it isn't the only one with design high on its agenda. Kids Unlimited, for example, won a RIBA award last year for its St Mary's Court Yard nursery in Manchester's Hulme regeneration area. Converted by architects Stephenson Bell from a burnt-out, but still elegant Victorian building, the nursery boasts such innovative features as a 'dance balcony' and a craft atelier.
According to managing director Sue Husbands, Leapfrog's design formula has stayed much the same over the chain's three-year history. There have been some changes though. Ms Husbands particularly loves the sensory rooms substituted for many of the group's underused sick bays, and much thought has gone into articulating outdoor space, where decking and amphitheatres have been introduced.
Leapfrog's biggest design challenge so far, however, is its forthcoming move into heritage territory. It will be interesting to see how it sets about converting a Victorian pumping station in Woking and a gracious Georgian mansion in Edgbaston.
Everyone concerned with building for the early years would agree with Eva Lloyd's insistence that environments should fit the child. They would doubtless also agree, in principle at least, on the necessity for plenty of space, both indoors and out, for natural light to raise the spirits and for imaginative design to stimulate the intellect. But there is one aspect of Ms Lloyd's thinking with which many still take issue - the idea is that, while safety is important, nurseries should not be too safe. According to this argument, completely safe environments are sterile places where children can never learn to cope with risk. Nurseries such as Venhoeven's Soest children's centre may alarm some parents and make staff work harder, but, so Lloyd and many others now believe, they are the future. We shall see.
* Mark Dudek's new book, Building for Young Children, a practical guide to planning, designing and creating the perfect space, is published at the beginning of July by the National Early Years Network (020 7607 9573) with the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The price is 13 to non-members and 10 to members. We have two copies to give away. Please write in with your name and address on a postcard to Nursery Chains giveaway at the address at the bottom of page 3 by June 30.
