Designing indoor environments - articles and resources from Community Playthings

Articles and resources on creating indoor environments for young children.

A quick guide to space planning
The fixed features of a building can constrain its interior design. Where possible, the fixed features should be kept to a minimum to allow for greater flexibility.

Better building design for young children
Robin Bishop and Martin Rimes

Architects are currently enjoying the biggest programme of building for young children that this country has ever seen. But whether the results will produce corresponding educational benefits is an open question.

Built-in vs. freestanding furniture
Helen Huleatt

Built-in units have their place, particularly for long-term storage of items used seasonally or on rare occasions. But built-in units can pose problems as well, particularly if they steal space that could be used for play, or if traffic to the storage units disrupts children’s activity.

Colour and sound in your nursery setting
Jordanna King

Children’s growth, development, and learning are directly affected by the amount of stimulation in their lives.

Creating indoor environments for young children
Francis Wardle, Ph.D.

An early childhood environment is many things. It's a safe place where children are protected from the elements and are easily supervised. And it's where the important activities of the day like playing, eating, sleeping, washing hands, and going to the bathroom take place. Beyond the basics, however, an environment for young children implements and supports a programme's philosophy and curriculum.

Designing quality child care facilities
Vicki L. Stoecklin and Randy White

The physical environment can either contribute to children's development and support staff and parent goals or create a permanent impediment to the operation of a high quality programme.

Happy spaces
Evelyn Mow

In the context of designing childcare settings, the term environment usually refers to the classroom, but it has a three-fold definition. Besides the physical space and how it looks, feels, smells, two other elements included in the word environment are equally important. The people that inhabit the space are part of the environment: their behavior, their likes and dislikes, their ages and how they feel; the time they spend in the space is an essential component as well.

Planning with Community Playthings - one centre's experience
Fiona Santos

At the New Tredegar Integrated Children’s Centre, a new build project in the top end of the Rhymney Valley, we were looking for top quality durable furniture. Community Playthings was recommended.

Transform your coat hooks
Martin Rimes

Does the entry to your centre proclaim to parents and visitors, “Here is a place for children?” Or does the inevitable jumble of damp jackets and general clutter in cramped quarters convey indifference?

Transforming spaces: Rethinking the possibilities
Rochelle Bunnett and Diane Kroll

From the location of learning areas to the selection and presentation of learning materials, the design of the physical environment powerfully impacts all aspects of an early childhood programme.