License to Play: Reimagining Celebrated Spaces for Children
Richardson Design inspires exploration in interactive spaces for all
Placing children at
the center of design
Innovative entertainment design principles are almost always ubiquitous with adult spaces and environments. Children’s spaces, on the other hand, often lean into whimsical color palettes, smiley faces and other trite design elements. However, it’s time that they received their fair share, especially when considering how a space can impact a child’s developing perspective of the world.
Fortunately, child-friendly design continues to gain traction across schools, playgrounds, community spaces, retail and more. Two of our recent projects – Children's Museum of Cleveland and Castaway Bay – allowed the Richardson Design team to flex our creativity and ingenuity in this area while collaborating with partners who armed us with the latest research related to children’s physical, emotional and developmental needs.
Trust us when we say that it was no simple game of blocks.
Children make up 25% of the world population.1
Children are increasingly accustomed to digital solutions and personalized technology.2
Environments are not usually designed for children, rather for the people who build and use them.3
More than four in five adults (84%) believe COVID-19 will play a significant role in shaping the children of today.4
Our team dives into the seriously playful world of entertainment design for children. We pair our commercial design expertise with our passion for research to collaborate with our clients and bring their visions to life.
Q: Describe the creative process behind designing spaces for children. What research do you conduct and where do you find inspiration?
RD: It’s fun to let our imaginations run wild when we design spaces for children. Our creative process for children’s spaces always begins with extensive research to understand functional and aesthetic design elements and whether they’re best suited for the project we’re working on.
Typically, children’s spaces are splashed with primary colors. We prefer to flip the script and incorporate more diverse color palettes and patterns. These reflect the wide variety of colors that children will experience in the real world.
We also dive into research on different styles of play to identify how children move throughout a space. Of course, we also take history and past use case of the space into account when developing design concepts.
Q: How do you create balance that feels right to both children and adults?
RD: You need to weigh the diverse abilities and sizes of your audiences. We lean on modular spaces to accommodate both children and their adult caregivers. Areas that can be scaled up or down for groups of kids and parents help us maintain the integrity of our original design and allow all guests to visit comfortably.
Paralleled elements – items or design features that are in multiple scales – also bring flexibility into a space. Kids engage in activities or interact with exhibits on soft, low seating or the floor while their adults watch on from comfortable adult-sized chairs.
Q: Elaborate on how you accommodate children’s needs/interests despite adults being the primary decision makers regarding the space. What steps do you take to make sure spaces are safe and inclusive for all guests?
RD: We’re passionate about entertainment design and value the extensive knowledge of experts who specialize in design for children like Karen Katz, exhibit designer for the Children’s Museum of Cleveland.
Research shows that kids should be given license to make experiences their own through open-ended, unstructured play. To spark kids’ imaginations, we use a mix of materials, scale, texture, and color to engage their senses. There’s a heavy focus on dynamic lighting and sound.
Even with the rise of technology in spaces for children, old-school play still has its place. We employ a combination of low- and high-tech elements to support different ages, abilities and interest levels.
Design needs to support diverse physical, mental and emotional capabilities. While some children thrive on color and excitement, others become overstimulated and need a space to decompress while still enjoying their experience. Sensory rooms continue to grow in popularity and support children of all ages.
To support children’s need for safety while at play, we create secure, durable spaces from materials that aren’t easily torn, broken or shattered by little hands or teeth. This creates environments where kids can explore, learn and grow while providing parents confidence and comfort.
FROM OUR PORTFOLIO:
Adventures abound thanks to Castaway Bay’s latest evolution in entertainment design
The Sandusky, Ohio waterpark resort is the perfect destination for families. When it was time for a playful facelift, Richardson was brought on for a redesign and to recreate the guest experience. Even with children constantly on the property, the hotel felt too adult-focused and corporate – not an inspiring space for children.
Our new design supported the clever storyline in which the island’s animal characters built the hotel!
Each floor now has its own theme, working up from water to airy treetops. The playful concept created an open and exciting interior with animal characters, built to make kids feel welcome and relatable.
As the main audience of the Castaway Bay's different spaces, children feel welcome anytime from check-in to mealtime with different types of entertainment and design modifications just for them. We incorporated elements like kid-sized check-in counters to help kids feel like they’re just as important as grown-ups.
Around every corner of the hotel’s property, kids are wide-eyed with delight. Lobby games keep children occupied and entertained during check-in with both tech-oriented and traditional activities. A multi-purpose craft-activity-movie room for toddlers to preteens includes seating for all learning levels – and their adult companions.
Q: What feelings or actions do you hope the spaces elicit in children?
RD: We’re serious about great design, but that’s where the seriousness ends. We believe spaces for children should foster unstructured, uninhibited play that sparks joy and imagination. We use their optimistic outlook, curiosity, and sense of fun to fuel our design agency’s ideas.
Q: How does thoughtful entertainment design accommodate a new way of socializing for children?
RD: Children born during the initial throes of the COVID pandemic haven’t had typical social interactions with their peers. They remained at home more than children from other generations which has left its mark. We keep this in mind during the design process to create spaces that encourage gentle socialization.
Thoughtful design includes variety: large, open spaces buzzing with activity contrasted with quiet, secluded nooks for small group or individual play. This dynamic approach allows children to step back into social situations on their own terms to create a natural progression toward socialization.
In our spaces for children, engagement points can be interacted with on any level. Children carry confidence gained in these spaces outside into other environments and throughout their formative years.
Q: How should these spaces make adults (who are there with children) feel?
RD: Even though the spaces are designed for children, adult companions should be engaged, too. Adults feel a sense of playfulness and curiosity (perhaps even nostalgia!) in children’s spaces and foster adult-child interactions.
Through design, adults should also feel safe to allow their children opportunities to roam and engage without constant supervision, providing a chance to breathe and relax.
Q: How have recent events shaped your approach to design for children?
RD: More than four in five adults (84%) believe COVID-19 will play a significant role in shaping the children of today.[1] Children of today are used to (and expect) crowd control and safety measures. Our team focuses heavily on simple wayfinding, crowd control and the ability to separate spaces (often with plexiglass) to create safe, healthy spaces for children.
Prior to the pandemic, our design agency was already developing children’s spaces with durability and hygiene in mind, so the transition to COVID standards didn’t require much additional effort.
FROM OUR PORTFOLIO:
The Children’s Museum of Cleveland brings discovery and joy to children of all ages
In collaboration with AoDK, a Cleveland architectural firm, and Karen Katz, Museum Director of Exhibits, Richardson Design reinvented the museum’s interior exhibit spaces for its new home in one of Cleveland’s last Millionaire Row mansions.
Sprawling and doll-like, the home served as an inspiration, guardrail, and vessel for the Richardson team. Each exhibit inside needed to bring a child’s imagination to life with designs that appeared to be dreamt and built by the children themselves. Richardson re-envisioned the experience from one exhibit to the next with a focus on open-ended play so all kids could make the exhibits and experiences their own.
Children are engaged through dynamic elements such as color and texture that grab hold of their senses. From exhibit design to wayfinding, a vibrant color palette draws attention while dynamic textures and materials stimulate the sense of touch.
Accessibility for different ages and abilities was carefully considered throughout our design process and execution. Activity areas in the final space include multiple levels of seating and work bench height; large spaces and small nooks take all social comfort levels into consideration; and the Sensory Friendly Room is a neutral space where overstimulated kids can find relief and calm.
“Richardson Design introduced colors, lighting, materials and more that empowers every child to learn and play on their own terms,” said Karen Katz, Director of Exhibits at the Children’s Museum of Cleveland. “If they seek adventure and excitement, there’s something to engage those needs. If they require a more calming space, we have subdued elements, too. When they have the opportunity to self-direct, that’s where the real learning and growing happens.”
Joy & Entertainment Design at Children’s Level
Design for children needs to be taken seriously. Adults have a responsibility to create safe, engaging spaces that help young minds develop the skills that will set them up for future success.
Connect with our Cleveland design firm team to bring children’s imaginations to life.
Built with Shorthand