Response to Review of
Design for Kids
Sharon Exley
Peter Exley
architectureisfun, Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
Citation: Exley, Sharon and Peter Exley. (2008). "Response to Review of Design for Kids." Children, Youth and Environments 18 (2). Retrieved [date] from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/
Design for Kids is first and foremost a monograph of the work of architectureisfun. As such it is a portfolio of work and introduction to architectureisfun's educative design™ philosophy. Consistent with the monograph format, Design for Kids highlights a diverse body of work for a general audience, while hinting at the multitude of layers of pedagogy which inform the firm’s designs. Design for Kids is not intended as a thesis statement or reference work (citing articles and studies) nor does it intend to speak to designers as a guide to architecture for children, though certainly it illustrates precedents.
That the monograph is seen as "beautiful," "informative," and "well-designed," we hope is in part an acknowledgement that designing for children is something taken seriously at architectureisfun. That the book is illustrated with drawings from the process of design from concept to completion, not merely finished photography, is highly unusual for a picture-style monograph; we applaud the leap of faith taken by the publisher in presenting a focus that is out of the mainstream.
Children spend an extraordinary amount of time in mundane, institutional environments. Design for Kids is not a manifesto, nor a guide, nor even a Design for Dummies; it is about possibility and potential through the eyes of architectureisfun. It is about what is possible when you advocate for architecture for children that is responsive, responsible, and reflective of their needs and wants. We too would welcome a "how to" manual, and probably have something to contribute from our repertoire of teaching, lectures, and participatory events.
We hope, along with our work, that Design for Kids might help chip away at the prevalence of the mundane, and in a small way result in making good design for children's environments an expectation, rather than the exception. An antidote to the mundane, if you will: nothing less than our children deserve.