The project was developed for the Shelter for Soul competition. And for us the main character was a child under the age of 15. We decided to realize our childhood dreams and create a kids house, we never had as children.
Creating the kids house, we used direct associations and images familiar to everyone since childhood. Most children, like we once, dream of their tree house, some of them build huts in the yard, and some of them build shelter from pillows and sheets. We tried to harmoniously combine these ideas in our project and create a place for children’s games and fantasies.
Playing is clearly an important element in the development and formation of the child. Sometimes a game is a way to be active or to give free rein to emotions, sometimes a way to relax, and sometimes to show intellectual abilities. A game is not a way of learn how to live, it is a true independent life.
We turned to research in child psychology and to experience in developing educational environment and took inspiration from some ideas behind the sensory room. This home is designed to be a place of calm, restoration of physical and psycho-emotional energy through special lighting, sounds, smells and natural materials.
The project uses eco-friendly materials such as wood and fabrics. Smell and feeling of wood help get rid of anxiety and relax, light airy white fabrics create a background for visualization of images and help to better develop the child’s imagination. Small windows in a canvas cover create a feeling of a fortress from which you can track the situation in the outside world and enable the light to create fancy patterns inside the house.
Our project allows children to engage in any kind of leisure, whether it’s a favorite game, reading a book or drawing, designing or playing a musical instrument. In their fantasies, a child can be the captain of a ship looking for treasure or the leader of a Native Americans tribe protecting his lands from invasion, or become into a hero saving a planet, or maybe just have a tea party with their favorite characters – the house offers a huge scope for children’s imagination!
The project raises questions of children’s perception of the world around them, the definition of themselves as individuals in it. We wanted to bring attention by this project to how important it is, especially in the modern world, developing at a tremendous speed, to give the child free space, a place where they can be alone with them self, immerse them self in their favorite books and dream, do what they love, just be in silence and watch the outside world from the window. Child sometimes needs to be chilled from the information flow, which today comes on a huge scale from various sources, and an aggressive society.
We believe that our project will successfully develop in a park environment and can be integrated into urban public spaces. It can also be used in preschool and school educational institutions, as a place to relax in between classes.
