Comment: What architects can learn from designing with children

Maria Patsarika, Research Associate from the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield comments on the idea of architects and landscape designers involving children in the design process. What architects can learn from designing with children by Maria Patsarika, 26 August 2014, posted on The Conversation. It makes perfect sense. If you need to design a new school or playground, who better to help than the children who are going to use it? Gradually, more architects and landscape designers are bringing young people into the design process. Now a new study has looked at what architects learn from children about how to break down their own creative barriers. As one architect put it, children can: "bring an energy, an imagination, an honesty, a moodiness sometimes which I quite like". The value of children's participation in design has been acknowledged in research studies since the 1960s and 1970s.