I Have Questions [Barry Van Deman, Design Institute 2017]

As we focus on connecting and reconnecting children and
nature, it is important to think about buildings as more than just
a necessary evil in the landscape. In most formal educational settings, apart from the purest forest kindergartens and outward bound, structures are used to enhance some combination of comfort, security, and functional flexibility for
the program participants. In more than 25 years of designing children’s spaces indoors and out, we have found that architecture can impact the experience of the out-of-doors in many ways, both positive and negative and that if we want to optimize children’s experience of nature we need to implement strategies that support access to and understanding of
the world beyond the walls of the building. This session explores some of these strategies and provides examples of successful projects, ideas, and techniques to do just that.