Fans of Pippi Longstocking may remember Pippi in Taka-Tuka-Land. Though the book was written in the 1950s, Pippi's world still resonates with children and Taka-Tuka-Land was the inspiration behind this Berlin kindergarten designed collaboratively with its young students.
The Taka-Tuka-Land Kindergarten is a project of The Baupiloten - a program for architecture students of Technischen Universität to provide students hands-on experience developing and executing a design. This group of students in turn involved the kindergarten students in creating a space that would inspire creative play as well as be functional to meet the school's needs.
The children together with their nursery school teachers made collages and models of Taka-Tuka-Land as they imagined it with melodic bridges, little huts, a merry-go-round of blossoms and a throne of shells for Pippi’s father. Their ideas triggered off the Baupiloten’s design, as the students sat in with the children for several days; they studied their schedules, their movements and methods of communication. These observations became part of a design which will enable the children to identify wholeheartedly with their kindergarten.
You can see more photos of theTaka-Tuka-Land Kindergarten as well as other Baupiloten projects at their website.
(Via: The Cool Hunter.)
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
I think they like their kids better in Europe.
view BambiJo's profile
...except for a few notable exceptions (safer car seats for example) kids live more dangerously here in Europe... if you see a kid riding a bike with a helmet here in town, you know that chances are, they are either American or Canadian...
view monika1's profile
That's funny - I got yelled at by a kid in Germany for not wearing a helmet while biking.
view KristinaXI's profile
The no-helmet days are gone for kids in Europe, or at least in Belgium. In our city, every kid gets a free bike helmet when they turn 3, and the schools really stress that all kids should wear helmets.
view lieve's profile
Bike helmet thing: When I was a kid living there my parents outfitted my bike with a bell and made me start wearing a helmet because it was the law (or so I was told). Why does this sort of thing always turn into a mini "Country Competition"?
Neat kindergarten. Simple enough.
view kafern's profile
I think kids are incouraged to have imagination more in Europe than in US. Here they are taught to follow rules, not to question them, not to think... Kindergarten w/o noisy toys and bold colors would be a strange concept for many parents!
view Nudik's profile
Here in Switzerland, as well as the part of France we frequent, very few people wear bike helmets, including very few children (it is shocking how often scooter drivers don't wear them).
That whole construction triggered safety issues for me because I know that my daughter would try to scale it...
view monika1's profile
As a teacher of 3 and 4 year olds as well as a mom to two kids, I looove this kind of post. So much inspiration to be gained here and from the home site you link to. Thanks for adding a little magic to my day.
view IronBetty's profile