The improvement of the country lies in nurturing its growing communities, especially the youth. I am interested in the educational aspect of the child's experience and especially how the built environment affects it.
The Child and the Home
We have now established the importance of the home as a place for restoration, as well as the importance of a place where the child can retreat and isolate. Obviously, home invasion is extremely personal and hurtful.
The Child and the Urban
Excluding the child from the urban is not only harmful to them, but also to the urban. Rather, the intention is to uncover a way in which, in the meantime, the child can be reintroduced into the urban through architectural intervention.
The Child and the Interior
In an attempt to show the alienation of a child in an indoor environment, Paul Ritter produced a 2.5:1 scale model of the interior of a house, shown in Figure 27 (Couchez 2020). As mentioned before, the way a home is not designed for a child requires that the child has their own space to adapt as they grow, but as mentioned, many are not in the financial position to do this. benefits for children in the family. Windows in the classrooms were above eye level so that the child would not be disturbed, teachers and children had separate entrances to the classrooms to reinforce the hierarchy in the teacher-centered learning space, texts other than the Bible were forbidden, as it was believed that that other texts would create independent children (Cleary 2004).
These are just a few examples of the measures taken in relation to the inner workings of the school to ensure a child's conformity. Rudolph Steiner was one of the first to turn the idea of the traditional and conformist school on its head, favoring gentler and more careful design principles as opposed to strategies that encouraged a child's conformity (Cleary 2004). The Nottinghamshire Education Department has recognized the need for spaces specifically dedicated to utilities such as toilets, quiet and domestic areas, offices etc.
This highlights the need for diverse and flexible spaces within the learning environment, which is linked to the modern ideology of self-rhythmic and. The need for an open and flexible space is justified by the need for three aspects, which were stated by Mark Dudek in his book "Kindergarten Architecture" (2000). This is again related to the need for space itself where the child can think and renew, as explained in the previous section "The child and the home".
Locating the Need for
Locating Vrygrond
Vrygrond is located in the False Bay region of the Western Cape and is approximately 21 km from the University of Cape Town. As can be seen in Figure 26, to the south of the area is a business park called Capricorn. The nucleated planning of the area creates an opportunity for a beacon of nurturing at the center of the community – bringing out the compelling need for nurturing in the community and acting as a recognizable space in which Vrygrond's youth can find solace.
The presence of the taxi rank (indicated by the red dot in Figure 28) causes heavy traffic on Berg Street and Neville Riley Road. The populated nature of these streets ensures security through passive surveillance which contrasts sharply with the dangerous nature of the greenbelt separating the area from the M5. The danger of the green belt was shared with me anecdotally by an unsolicited longtime resident of the area as I walked through it.
The regular routes in the area establish two gates (highlighted in the yellow dotted circles in figure 30) that protect the core of the area. As these gates receive a lot of traffic, many people trade here, ensuring continuous occupation and establishing a sense of protection of the area. A space in which a sense of community can be nurtured and returned to the state it was in before the rapid densification of the area.
Spaces of Nurture in Vrygrond
These are generic representations and do not represent actual educators in the field, but give the reader a sense of the existing conditions. A generic plan for educares falling under tier 2 and tier 3 has been generated to try to get a sense of the way these spaces could be planned to facilitate educare as an extension of the home. Therefore, the investment in industry is not sufficiently reflected in the urban conditions in the Vrygrond area.
Due to the large amount of young people in the area, it is imperative that this change - 34% of the population of Vrygrond is under 19 years and 13% of it under 4 years. One can note the occupation of the two gateways along Drury Road and Vrygrond Avenue by vendors, indicated by red dots, due to the traffic these gateways receive. The park is strewn with pieces of broken glass and visibility into it is very limited due to the cumbersome nature of the fence that surrounds it.
Protection of the child is something that can easily be provided by cross-programming a space; ensure that there are adults present to keep a watchful eye on the children occupying spaces. An attitude that could change if a successful integration of the child and adult realms were to be achieved. Although the streets of Vrygrond are full of activity, this is not being used to ensure protection of the child-centred spaces that exist in the area.
Building Nurture
Placing Nurture
I have chosen this site as adding a program here will help remove the alienation of the child-centric spaces. I have made an axonometric drawing of the place to get a sense of the spatial densities in the immediate surroundings. Children play in the streets of the area, where there is also a lot of crime and violence due to the cramped conditions the population has to endure.
The amount of underutilized space lying open in the heart of the area requires that function be added as this is a highly populated street and therefore allows for passive monitoring for a child-centred facility where doors could be opened for children after school. The choice of this site opens up discussion of the way in which schools are inherently alienated from the urban environment, as this is seen as a method of 'protection' for the vulnerable children who occupy it. There are a number of nurseries in the immediate vicinity of the selected location shown in Figure 44, namely Capricorn Primary indicated in orange, a pair of educares indicated in yellow, True North (the building indicated in red at the bottom of the figure) and the SOZO foundation (also indicated with red on the left edge of the figure).
The intervention is something that can be used by the children who occupy all the spaces highlighted in the adjacent figure. The site also offers the opportunity to break down the hard boundary between the child- and adult-centered area that can help in alienating the child from the urban. This can be achieved through the inviting occupation by adults of the child-centered space using the strategy of cross-programming.
Programme of Nurture
Although iKhaya Le Themba is a successful model, the isolation of the faculty does cause some concern. Since it is quite far from the dense built fabric of the settlement and largely surrounded by child-oriented spaces, it may seem like a very easy target. The facility seemingly creeps up the slope, protected by Sakisizwe's kitchen adjacent to the western entrance and guarded by iKhaya Le Themba's kitchen, located at the highest point of the lot on the eastern periphery.
By placing kitchens on both sides of the building, more vulnerable functions such as classrooms are protected. The classroom configuration protects this open playground from the more open southern periphery. The layout of the classrooms also ensures that this playground is supervised at all times.
The organization of the facility was clearly intended to ensure the care and protection of the needy children occupying the space. The library and toy library will be open to users of the facility and will contain a computer lab for use by those who need it. There is still much to explore and a number of issues that need to be addressed to ensure the care and protection of growth in the Vrygrond community.
Building Nurture
Passive safety was achieved by ensuring that the intervention's public interface encouraged occupancy. The classrooms break up the scale of the intervention and contrast the more prominent public interface. At the front of the plan is the small cafe and the raised sidewalk to encourage gathering at the entrance to the intervention to ensure the safety of the occupation.
Adjacent to the cafeteria sits the public library which can be accessed either by the public or the residents of the facility. Porches and window seats line the facades of the classrooms and define the courtyard space and add a layer of privacy to the internal spaces. The toy library (which doubles as a nursery for toddlers) sits at the south-eastern end of the site.
It also changes the norm of the space hierarchy - giving the child the most spacious space and the adult the most limited space. The roof plan expresses the varied nature of the roof landscape in both scale and height. The library roof acts as a beacon for the intervention, but still tries to speak to the scale of the community's built structure.
The elevation of the toy library and educational support center reflects the more sheltered nature of the administrative functions on the right. The exterior has been clad in a heat-treated wood paneling that conveys the warm and textured nature of the interior to the exterior.
Nurture Realised
