Re-Designing the Apartment-High-Rise through a Child's Perspective

Abstract

“Children learn by being active participants with their environment” –Piaget Children perceive space very differently than adults. Their progression in physical and cognitive development limits them from experiencing space as an adult would. With this understanding it is an interesting fact, that many of our buildings are designed by adults without the understanding of a child’s perception of space. Sometimes the adult’s misperception limits children from being active participants with their environment. According to the United Nations Center for Human Settlements (UN-HABITAT), “it has been estimated that by the year 2025 the world’s largest cities would need to accommodate four billion people. In which, an average of one-third of this estimated population will consist of children under the age of 18 years and in result the majority of these city residents (at least 45-50 percent) will be children.” 1 With such a high ratio of children in the overall future population of cities, much more effort must be made to create children-friendly apartment buildings. The purpose of this doctorate project is to research and propose several spatial ideas to address the spatial and social limitations of children in our developing world, specifically with high-rise apartments. Spatial limitation theories, derived from Psychologist Jean Paiget’s child development cognitive and physical observations, are defined and incorporated into the proposed spatial designs of this doctorate project in order to encourage a child’s social participation within the apartment building as they develop through their childhood. Social spaces within the apartment building are the focus of this project. Assuming that a child learns by being an active participant with the environment and that a child’s perception of space grows concurrently with age, personal spatial interpretations are paired with Psychologist Jean Piaget’s child development stages. Initially, to better understand how a child perceives space, the apartment building space is broken down into three spatial focuses: 1. The apartment unit, 2. The apartment floor, and 3. The apartment building as a whole. 1 UNCHS, An Urbanizing world: Global Report on Human settlements 1996, Oxford: Oxford University Presspotential peer socialization. With this assumption, the goal of the design is to encourage a child’s development of peer relationships within the proximity of the apartment floor by integrating a range of diverse social spaces.