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How Children’s Imaginations Inspired This Cool School

A new Danish kindergarten was envisioned by the way a child might draw a house

Erin Blakemore

Correspondent

February 10, 2016

Inside, a house-like structure houses a sink and storage. Rasmus Hjortsh/J-Coast Studio/COBE

Mini houses inside the structure are both cute and functional. Rasmus Hjortsh/J-Coast Studio/COBE

The architects used the house shape to create diverse spaces for education and play. Rasmus Hjortsh/J-Coast Studio/COBE

Play areas reflect the kindergarten's simple house theme. Rasmus Hjortsh/J-Coast Studio/COBE

This kindergarten in Fredericksberg, Denmark was inspired by how a child might draw a house. Rasmus Hjortsh/J-Coast Studio/COBE

The kindergarten replaced one built for just 30 students. Rasmus Hjortsh/J-Coast Studio/COBE

What would happen if children took over the world of architecture? Buildings might not be as practical, but they sure would be a lot more fantastical—and fun. Now, a group of Danish architects have unveiled a structure that draws on that sense of childish wonder. It’s a kindergarten that is inspired, appropriately, by the way a child might draw a house.

The result is the new Frederiksvej Kindergarten, located in Frederiksberg, a city near Copenhagen, Denmark. The kindergarten consists of a small cluster of buildings that look like they might have jumped off of a child’s sketchpad. Each of the facility’s 11 buildings were inspired by how children would sketch a house, and inside small, house-like structures serve as everything from hangouts for kids to places for storage and sinks.

Dan Stubbergaard, founder of COBE, tells DesignBoom that the buildings were designed with children in mind. “It is important to us to create intimacy and space for the children’s small worlds in the kindergarten, where they spend a large part of their day,” says Stubbergaard.

The architect’s website says that though the building “appears as a playful village for children…from the inside, it is nonetheless coherent and efficient.” Flexibility and simplicity may have been the byword for the kindergarten’s architects, but for the 180 kids at Frederiksvej, the building is something else entirely: A place for plenty of fun.

COBE isn’t the only group of designers paying increased attention to kids’ artistic skills: Last year, furniture giant IKEA released an entire line of children’s toys inspired by their drawings, and a Swedish architect recently gained attention for designing a prefab residence based on how a kid might draw. Watch out, design world: The children are coming, and they’re armed with papers, crayons and plenty of imagination.

(h/t Slate)