Child Friendly Architectures. Design Spaces for Children and Adolescents

Abstract

This paper presents the educational and laboratory experience of the course entitled “Child Friendly Architectures”, taught during the 2019 academic year at the School of Architecture and Design (SAAD) of the University of Camerino, in collaboration with UNICEF Italia. The training course is the first in Italy to build a dialogue between the discipline of architecture and the protection and promotion of children and adolescents’ rights. The course was offered to the university’s students and was structured as two modules. In a series of training seminars, the first module, Teaching Activity, addressed the design of spaces for children and adolescents while looking closely at good practices and case studies. The second module, Application Activity, was a practical laboratory which guided students in a participatory process of planning. The students experimented with reading and planning a specific context in which they live, using specially structured tools and methods. The Child Friendly Architectures training course theorizes a way of thinking about the design of spaces for children and adolescents, taking into consideration their rights, and promoting the learning of tools, design techniques and new technologies. The competences involved in participatory planning—which can be learned—strengthen team work through important networking and listening opportunities. This helps young people to develop a critical awareness of children and adolescents’ rights, and the quality of the spaces dedicated to them.