Creating Places in Open Plan Spaces: Designing Early Childhood Learning Centers for Engagement

Peter Lippman (Places Created for Learning)

Open plan design is often considered a sustainable approach to education spaces that maximizes opportunities for day lighting, minimizes material expenditures, and affords flexibility for occupants to create places suited for their group’s needs. There have been challenges to these assumptions, however, with the most common concerns of noise, privacy, and teacher’s ability to manage the space as detractors from students’ ability to “settle in”. A multi-site case study comparison method examined how well open plan design supported learning objectives in a provider of Early Childhood Learning Center (ELC) facilities in Australia. Developed in collaboration with managers, administrators, and teachers, the project studied ten sites through a design-evaluation-provider partnership approach to produce a post-occupancy evaluation with evidence-based design (POE/EBD) guidelines. Researchers examined spaces in the organization’s open-plan model for their role in creating places where children and teachers can engage, identifying areas in need of redesign, and offering recommendations. Criteria for evaluation were drawn from literature on best practices for successful child development, the organization’s mission, and a Reggio Emilia approach which was a model for the initial design. Over the course of four months in 2017 one visit was made to each of the 10 centers where data were collected through observational methodologies including behavior mapping (Sanoff & Coates, 1971) of activity settings, recording of physical traces (Zeisel, 1981), photography, and samples of ambient sound levels. In addition, online surveys and questionnaires (N=67) focusing primarily on space-centered activities were obtained from teachers and administrators. Findings revealed that participants employed several strategies that supported effective child engagement in open spaces while recognizing a need for refuge spaces for children and specific furnishings, among other challenges. The need for differentiation of spaces and definition of purpose was found to be an important design strategy for children’s full engagement in activities.