On a children’s scale

“If we compare life to a dense forest, then kids are saplings, ready to grow. This is why those who design structures for them have to create fertile ground.” This is the poetic and pragmatic idea of Lin Jiacheng, co-founder together with Cui Shu of CUN PANDA Architecture Design, a team that specializes in the design of spaces for children, incorporating the pedagogical tenets of the anthropologist Wassilios Emmanuel Fthenakis in its creative process.
The kindergarten of POAN Educational Institution in Fujian, in southeastern China, also embodies this philosophy, down to the smallest details.

Here the design language is deployed to stimulate the imagination of children and to cultivate their independence. In the digital era, modes of knowledge transmission have changed, and the entire procedure is based on cooperation and active participation of the parties involved.
By creating interactive spatial modules, CUN PANDA puts teachers and children on the same level, conveying communication in a natural, effective way. Small square multifunctional areas, all interconnected, to break up the traditional closed arrangement, improving indoor-outdoor relations, stimulating the desire to explore the unknown.

Every detail has been carefully honed, as in the focus on the sound made by a sea of balls in which to romp, inside a box with the form of a puzzle piece. Or in the anti-pinch measures adopted for every door, to protect young hands. And the soft floor of the reading room. The cubes of the irregular lockers in the sensory training room are echoed by the geometric forms in the art space. The light sources for diffuse refraction bring visual comfort, protecting the eyes.