Children are small—it is their most obvious difference to adults. It is how we identify them and how they identify themselves.
Their smallness can make them vulnerable and insecure, so they are naturally drawn to small cubbies and small-scaled areas
where they can feel competent to cope with new challenges. Providing small microcosms within the whole gives children a sense
of safety, control and belonging.
Small-scale furniture and equipment, cubbies and hidey holes, low-level small windows that only children can use, breaking up a
larger volume into smaller components and contrasting the big picture against the small all help children to come to terms with the
world around them.
In Japan, many of the centres have built small child-scaled spaces into the architecture to great effect, while in Italy they have relied on
freestanding furniture installations with a dual role as cubbyhouse to provide the microscale. The most famous of these is the padded triangle,
open at both ends (image 4). Every centre I visited had something, from the internal tree-house of Buckle My Shoe (image 7) to the mouse
hole cut into the skirting in Winchester (see images 5 and 6 on p. 55).