CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY

The Adventure is a children university designed in Kayseri, Turkey.  Main education theme of the university is Social and Emotional learning (SEL). SEL is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set, and achieve positive goals, feel, and show empathy for others, establish, and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. The university serves 5-8 ages (after early childhood) since they can identify and manage emotions, begin to function more independently, and express an opinion and negotiate.

This training is planned to be implemented after school on weekdays and as extra days on weekends. To give efficient feedback to all these goals of education, the design program was made, and the program was placed according to certain principles in design. The first of these principles was to provide privacy for children. A permeable space was obtained by separating the social and private spaces from each other and locating the permeable public space in between. Thus, children would be more comfortable and freer in private areas. The second principle is to design a space arrangement according to the operation of the theme. The main layout of the building was arranged according to the progress of the program (from self-awareness activities to social awareness activities) and this process became the source of the building's name and “The Adventure” emerged. The last principle is to protect all the old and young trees on the site as much as possible, taking as an example the respect for nature approach of AGU. In this context, the spaces were positioned where the trees were the sparsest and where there were young trees. Thus, young trees can be moved to another part of the garden. Based on the same principle, a greenhouse and semi-open green area were positioned at the most central and visible point of the design. Thus, it was aimed to create permeable spaces in spatial fiction, to raise children who respect nature, and to create entertaining spaces.

A modular approach was preferred in the façade design of the building. The vertical modularity in the construction of the greenhouse was continued with aluminum panels in the theater and administration building, but in some parts colored panels were used to make the theater building more entertaining. On the other hand, the main education building was painted in a soft color with a simple approach for the dominant shape and the shadings used to reduce the time of exposure to the sun. Also, interactive facade used on the facade of the theater and the spaces it built around it. On this front, performances are held publicly at night. The space formed in front of the façade is a very busy space that hosts both social and intense circulation. In addition, the demonstrations on the front are observed from inside the university and even from the greenhouse, and a relationship is established.