An imaginative outdoor structure has pride of place at one of London Metropolitan University's nurseries thanks to an ambitious project by some of its students.
A group of second-year interior architecture students designed and built the structure for their Tectonics and Realisation module.
The structure is a large lilypad-shaped platform, complete with a bamboo xylophone and two different sized blackboards. It has tree-trunk steps and a ramp to allow access to the platform. It is made almost entirely from wood, giving a natural feel, and even the blackboard paint is organic.
'Children have a lot of plastic things and we wanted to do something that was more natural,' explains Lesley Evans, one of the students who, along with fellow group member Catherine Day, was appointed a project leader.
'An awful lot of children don't get to go outside much if they live in the city. The manager was quite keen that we did something that would mean that the children would be able to relate to nature a bit more.'
The platform is built around a tree, to add to the organic feel. 'We wanted to have a tree in the middle; we were going to buy one and plant it originally, but the nursery wanted us to use an existing one,' says Ms Evans.
The platform is not very high, about 50cm off the ground, but that it was off the ground at all was very important. The students consulted with numerous experts over the project, from structural engineers and builders, to health and safety people. They also spoke to an artist who had written a book about adventure playgrounds in Europe, and he advised them to provide a raised platform.
'He was saying to us that in his observations of children in playgrounds he found that they really like being off the ground,' says Ms Day. 'It doesn't have to be high just so long as they're off the ground and they can claim their own space.'
Sense of adventure
The group wanted their contribution to the nursery to provide the children with their own space and somewhere to play out their fantasies.
'It was important that they had a sense of adventure, that when they came to the nursery they had experiences that they wouldn't normally have in their own life,' says Ms Evans. 'Also, the manager wanted it to be a reasonable height and for it to have different ways of getting up to it so that the children could feel that they had achieved something by using it.
Adventure is important.'
Not that the adventure is achieved at the expense of safety. All surfaces are finished appropriately and safely rounded; safety was always a primary concern. However, the students realised that taking risks and pushing limits is an important part of children's early development.
'There was always a debate within the group about how safe it should be,'
admits Ms Day. 'When we went down the route of how we didn't want the children falling off and hurting themselves, we'd be reminded of how when you were little you really liked climbing up high on things or seeing how high you could jump, you really liked that sensation.'
Child clients
With little idea of what to build, the students initially consulted with the nursery, and although they spoke extensively to the manager, it was the children's opinions that they really wanted.
'They were the first ones we went to,' explains Ms Day, 'I mean, to us it seemed obvious. If you're designing anything, the first thing you do is go to your client. We talked to the teachers too, but as far as we're concerned the children are our clients; we're making something for them.
'We wanted to try to get to know them a bit,' adds Ms Evans. 'We thought it was important to learn to relate to them so that we knew what they might be interested in.'
Of course, these are not the average architecture clients, so the students had to find ways to understand what the children wanted. They set up several workshops to find out about the children's preferences.
'We got them to make models and draw pictures. We couldn't just go to them and say, "we're gonna design something for you, what would you like?"
because they're too small to articulate at their age,' says Ms Day. 'All we could do was say, "build something" or "make something", then look at what they had done and try to see something in the structures and muddles they had made. From that we all came up with our own ideas of what we could make.'
Though it may seem expensive and time-consuming - the project lasted three to four months and cost 2,200 - Ms Evans believes other nurseries could do the same. The structure took just three days to build, with most of the project time taken up with academic aspects of the work, and numerous consultations and design stages.
'I definitely feel that it could be done for less money and in a similar timescale,' she says. 'With a skilled builder and if they knew what they were doing it would be a lot easier.'
Benefits for all
The group's project has proved a hit with the examiner - it was awarded an A-grade - and with the nursery too.
'It's been great,' says Joan Fitzgerald, the childcare services manager for London Metropolitan University, 'a real success. The kids love it; they are fascinated by it.'
The nursery has also benefited from being involved in the project. It presented an opportunity to take part in a development for which they alone may not have had either the time or resources required.
'It is very difficult to find money to develop things like this,' says Ms Fitzgerald. 'So to have the opportunity to work in partnership with the students, so that they could support us and we could support them, has been great.'
The staff are especially pleased because the project allowed them to enhance the nursery in accordance with their pre-existing goals for the setting. 'We've been trying for a while to develop our outdoor area, especially to add to the creativity,' says Ms Fitzgerald.
'There were lots of things we thought about. We didn't want it to be just a structure, like a bench, that was only used in one particular way. We wanted to think about how the children could get the most out of it.' The outdoor structure is a real success in this sense. It is used for a variety of things, including outdoor storytime, and the children are inventive with it.
'A lot of imaginative play goes on there, that's been particularly popular with the children. They extend it into other areas of their play; they bring toys to it, they make camps and they can then extend their play into other areas of the garden,' she explains.
'It's stimulating, so it draws them to it and the children really use it very creatively. It's been ideal.'
