Children and architecture: educational perspectives

Children don’t act out a simple process of adaptation to space, but a real constructive interaction: they assimilate the environment constructively, making significant cognitive, psychomotor and affective procedures, through active approaches. The relationship between children and architecture is complex, since the space is not a given but a construct, in which intersect signs and symbols, actions and relationships, emotional experiences and mental representations. The objective of the paper is to present a project for children's education to architecture, that enhances the children skills and their ability to proceed from the real to the fantastic dimension, without losing the meaning of contexts. The purpose of the project was to provide primary school children an opportunity to create a personal relationship with their life contexts, consisting of knowledge and feelings, developed through intense sensorial experiences and physical activities.