Monday, September 14, 2009

Child Responsive Architecture: A Learning Tool

University of Dundee

School of Architecture

Jenny Millar


Research Background

“Have you ever lost a child in a public place? – Remember the panic? You are not alone! – Often we blame the child for misbehaving, or the carer for not paying enough attention, but rarely do we blame the building or the architect for an organisation of space that is calling to children in a way that adults will never fully understand.” 

This research derives from the researcher’s personal interest in the relationship between architecture and people, arising from, primarily, simple observations of different groups of people within buildings, during her undergraduate study. People do not always behave as expected; in particular, children and this interest underpinned her study of architecture. The researcher recognised that observers of children within buildings would often relate their differences in behaviour, to those expected of them, to different levels of maturity or energy rather than their innate perceptual ability. The PhD research explores that perceptual ability as a comprehension of architecture, that is, contained space, to consider “what it is actually saying to our kids.”


Full theris proposal 

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