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Two Cornell University interior design classes didn't just build scale models, but the real thing -- indoor play zones for child-care centers.
The undergraduates planned, designed and built four child-care learning and play activity centers, or mini-playgrounds, that will become available to participating area child-care providers. The designs include "magnetic mania," where children play with magnet shavings that are under a plexiglass floor panel, a "fabric jungle," in which strips of brightly colored fabric attached to poles can be interwoven; and a "star wall," a dark corner with flashing lights meant to resemble a spaceship. Each play zone focuses on a different developmental need of young children, including cognitive; manipulative; art, music and fantasy; and motor skills.
The projects were based on collaborations between two classes in design and environmental analysis: Associate Professor Paul Eshelman's Intermediate Interior Design and Professor Gary Evans' Environmental and Social Behavior. The students in Evans' class researched the social, behavioral and psychological needs of young children in day care and developed design guidelines from which the design students developed their play zones. In addition, the student teams collaborated with about eight day-care providers, brought together by Lita Remsen, who was the training coordinator at the Day Care and Child Development Council of Tompkins County, and Shared Journeys, a nonprofit organization committed to improving the quality of care-giving relationships, including both paid professional and unpaid familial care.
"Shared Journeys promotes everyday practices, policies and environments which support quality care," says the organization's co-founder and vice president Eric Clay, a 1981 Cornell graduate and now a doctoral student in city and regional planning at Cornell. "Shared Journeys' role is to ignite a passion for innovative and loyal relationships at work, home and the wider community."
Read more about interior design class on www.interiordesignerclasses.com
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