Laying the foundations for positive pre-school experiences can all come down to careful planning of the nursery environment. The challenge to design nurseries that allow children to have the freedom to explore, socialise and make their own choices has been passed on to top architects under the Government's Neighbourhood Nurseries initiative.
The winning designs of three Neighbourhood Nurseries (News, 16 August) will be used as a blueprint for future nurseries to create buildings that are adaptable, functional and provide an environment where children can thrive.
Early years consultant Jennie Lindon says it is crucial that nursery buildings encourage children's personal, social and emotional development. 'If a nursery is not warm and encouraging, it can make children feel low and unhappy, and reluctant to learn and explore. A miserable building can bring adults down too,' she says.
The nursery should allow children to have the space for movement and physical play as well as areas for more focused activities, such as painting or reading, so children can make their own choices. Jennie Lindon says, 'A sense of space is very important. Children need to be able to move around to develop their own friendships and play; otherwise they can get frustrated and take it out on each other. But there also needs to be a balance, because a very big room can be too imposing, so it should be broken up with pieces of furniture. Children like spaces and corners, so there needs to be a balance between having freedom to move around and creating niches.'
Mark Dudek, an architect specialising in pre-school environments, also stresses the need to consider scale. 'The most critical dimension of a nursery environment is that children are much smaller than adults,' he says. 'My research points to the idea that children perceive things differently than adults and they are more concerned with detail. It is also important that any designer understands the scale of children's activity. Young children tend to use the floor instead of chairs and tables, so it is important to make the surface not just clean and safe but also interesting.'
Eye to eye
DSDHA architects, when planning their winning design to extend and remodel Hoyle Nursery in Bury, studied the way the building would feel from the viewpoint of both young children and adults. A stuffy or badly lit building can make children listless, so they also looked at creating more light by raising the roof and designing more windows.
'It is a deep building, so we've designed a courtyard to go in the centre of the building to improve the levels of natural light,' says DSDHA partner Deborah Saunt. 'We took care to make the building understandable, instead of having lots of corridors. The children will now always know where they are in relation to the central courtyard.'
Nursery chain Jigsaw Group has set up a 'vision group', made up of senior management, nursery nurses and architects, to design child-centred learning environments for their purpose-built nurseries. The chain is currently working with Portsmouth Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership on a Neighbourhood Nursery project. Curriculum manager Ruth Forbes says the neighbourhood nurseries will be developed in exactly the same way as their other nurseries, which includes allowing children ample access to outside.
'We always make sure that both the indoors and outdoors are fully accessible so children can make full use of both. The nursery building can help develop children's sensory awareness and perception, and we want children to become independent learners and thinkers and feel free to use and explore all the space.'
Russell Clayton, of Clayton Panter Hudspith architects, joint winners of the Sheffield site, says, 'There is also a need to make the place fun and allow the children to have a sense of the nursery as an extension of home, or personalise it to them. It is important that children feel like they belong, and this can all depend on the rooms in which they play, the artwork on display or where they store their coats.'
Home from home
Jennie Lindon agrees. 'A home-like quality is very important because we raise our children in families,' she says. 'It is not good to spend their time in too structured or formal environments. The best nurseries have comfortable places for children to sit, such as a sofa or a comfortable book corner with a place to settle by themselves or with a friend. Nurseries do not have to be like home, but they should have home-like qualities.'
Mark Dudek suggests nurseries could reflect home life more by making the kitchen a more central focus. 'It is also important for children to have the space to eat communally as part of a public activity where they can sit and talk and enjoy a meal together. That is the way it happens in continental Europe where the ritual informs the day and is not hidden,' he says.
The Reggio Emilia pre-school system in Italy places an importance on communal eating and time for sleeping. Pat Brunton, chair of Cornwall EYDCP, says, 'Within a typical school the entrance hall leads to the dining hall, while a working kitchen, which is visible at all times, enhances the family atmosphere. The piazza, the central space, is a place for encounters, friendships, interaction and play. It complements the classrooms which are connected to it. The classrooms are organised into "spaces" that allow children to interact with others or to be alone. In addition, each school has an atelier, the creative and discovery area, where children work on exten-ded projects developing their scientific and creative skills and theories.'
When designing a nursery Mark Dudek says he thinks through the activities children will be doing and gives space to both the public and private activities, inside and outside. 'Children use the outside in exactly the same way as rooms that are actively fragmented and broken down. Gardens should have dedicated areas for different activities such as water play, balancing, climbing and reading.'
DSDHA's design includes creating a series of 'outdoor rooms' such as a sensory garden, deck area with solar fountain, and a sandpit and covered areas. Birds Portchmouth Russum's design for the nursery in Bexley also has easy access to two secure internal courtyards through glazed screens that fold back. One courtyard has been designed as a tranquil environment, while the other is for more active play.
While giving thought to child-height door handles, hand rails and low-level windows, the needs of adults should not be overlooked. DSDHA discussed their design with Hoyle Nursery's headteacher and incorporated spaces for staff. 'The staff dedicate all their energies to the children and have given up many things for the children's benefit. The staff room is currently being used as a library without enough seats for all the staff, and the toilets double up as a nappy changing area,' says Deborah Saunt. 'We created new staff areas that look out on a piece of staff garden so they can recharge from their work. We also created a larger library and more nappy changing areas for the children.'
This reinforces why good nursery design, as Jennie Lindon says, is not the be-all and end-all. Careful use of colour and pictures, and good planning and organisation, can transform a poor existing building into a stimulating nursery.
'There is not a perfect design for a nursery building,' she says. 'A purpose-built nursery can be brought down by the staff whereas good quality staff in a less than ideal nursery can make it into a positive nursery environment. A good-quality nursery is not just bricks and mortar.'
