Miniature Architecture
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In that he [Aldo van Eyck] recognizes that there ought to be a child in every adult and that an adult’s city ought to remain a city for the child, built out of chaos and dreams. Children*, by nature, are brave and rebellious; they are restless and are not easily conform by rules. They are inspired by their physical environment and are very curious about the world. Meanwhile, children are fragile and are in need of physical and emotional protections. It is therefore essential to recognize that a child’s need as well as the way they perceive or interact with the world is primarily different from that of an adult. *For the purpose of the thesis’s focus, I will be focusing on children under the age of 10. Unfortunately, particularly in places like Hong Kong or China, child-rearing is mainly authoritarian. Children’s academic performances are highly evaluated while other aspects in a child’s life such as play/creativity or the ability to learn from/make mistakes from physical environment are often lacking. This resulting in what is known as the ‘Hong Kong Kids’ phenomenon in which young children grow up to become teenagers who are not capable of self-caring, who lack emotional and social intelligence and who are fearful of failure and mistakes. Another phenomenon that is affecting children of this generation involves the rapid growth of technology. While technology offer an abundance of information and entertainment that is undeniably an integral part of life today, it can also detach us from our physical surroundings and from the collective world, which could post potential future struggles as it is vital that the development of collectivism and social skills start with a young mind. The project develop around the belief that the means of architecture can shape behavior. It can be a medium that shape or mold or speak with the children during their crucial years of development. The project will seek to develop a somewhat bigamy scheme where play and learning take place in the same setting. Through the study of children’s psychology and behavioral pattern, it is a process of developing a ‘space’ where children can be both safe and adventurous, at home yet open to the world, abides by framework but allows flexibility, and provokes individualism while encourages collective creativity. Herman Hertzberger, after over 50 years of experimenting with educational institutions, states that even though over time, the ideas about education, architecture criteria and spatial resources, may change, “how children learn and how you make space for them to do so have not changed” (Alle Scholen, 2009) The project intend to look at the interaction of playing and learning through a medium outside of the formal education system. One intended approach would focus on a bigger scale structure that serves as a place where children can learn through playing without formal teaching. The other intend for testing is inserting smaller scale interventions in the leftover/wasted/abandoned thresholds within the city.
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