CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY

Nowadays, it is very important to encourage children to be a part of society and to prevent them to feel lonely. Schools that currently exist already provide interaction among the students. However, they do not remove the barriers between the local people and children. Especially teenagers are introverted and believe that adults do not put themselves in their shoes. Therefore, children and partially teenagers prefer not to be in public.
           
The design which is a children’s university aims to break this invisible fence between children and other people, specifically adults, and contribute children to society again based on one of the AGU values which is “contribute to society”.

The design, Future Children’s University, located in Kayseri between Abdullah Gul University and the student village of it. The location of the site is very crucial and affects the design in many aspects. Due to its critical location, this children’s university acts like a bridge between the students of AGU, the students at the children’s university, and the local people around in the neighborhood. Furthermore, the Erkilet Boulevard passes right in front of the site area which makes the design easy to access. In addition to these, what makes it crucial is the fact that there are many schools around and the students studying in these schools can easily come to the children’s university. What makes this education building unique is the curriculum and its adequate and appropriate facilities it provides for several activities that people are not very familiar with at the other existing schools such as gardening in the school, cooking classes, etiquette lessons, etc. 

While the children university encourages the students to be a part of the society it is also very important to make local people around in the neighborhood be a part of the design. As a consequence of this conceptual idea, it can be said that the design has been affected by the local people just like it does have an impact over them. Their value, worldview, the way how they entertain and spend their time can be considered as some of the factors that influence the design. Some part of the open area was designed accordingly to the interest of the local people. For instance, since what people from Kayseri like is walking around and sitting somewhere with their families and friends, there are many sitting areas in the area. Some of them are stair-like areas, some of them are grass and some of them are benches that face fountains. Other than these elements, there is also a café which can be used by both the students and the local people while considering student safety.
Inside the classes, different than the ones in normal schools, there is a very mini stage where the students can do speeches and learn how to speak in front of the crowd. Furthermore, there is a common gardening yard in front of the classes. The backyard is created to let the students have some fun and spend quality time there.