DU Studio delivered a space of creativity for young children visiting NYC Kids Club located in Shijiazhuang, China.

The NYC Kids Club is located inside a shopping mall. At the entrance area, a double-layered space has been designed to be utilized by those that carry shopping carts with them.

At the center of the club, kids and visitors can view a large tree-house playground. The design goal here is to enhance children’s curiosity, as well as their social skills, as through play with others they become more easily integrated into new learning practices and experiences.

At the center of the club, kids and visitors can view a large tree-house playground. The design goal here is to enhance children’s curiosity, as well as their social skills, as through play with others they become more easily integrated into new learning practices and experiences.

Going towards the kitchen, children and visitors can witness another highlight of the NYC Kids Club. Partitions made of acrylic tubes contain fruits, intended for consumption (a healthier version than Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house). The design of the space, in a sense, becomes part of the function, an extension of the people’s intentions, and a process of enhancing creativity and imagination. In front of the kitchen, a triangle space is utilized ritualistically, as it allows the teachers to reward students with fresh fruits that can extracted from the acrylic tubes directly.

Continuing towards the gym, the kids find small stairs that give them the opportunity to playfully climb towards it. The wall panels of the room can be re-arranged, like a big toy, according to the activities that take place. The open space becomes an opportunity for countless activities, and with the use of a large quantity of soft objects consisting of different sizes, educators can innovate on providing engaging and rewarding experiences to the little kids.

In the music classroom, the idea is to create a house that can sing. We designed triangle windows where embedded sound speakers emit on the outside a mix of sounds, allowing curious children to walk closer and hear parts of the music activities that take place inside of the room. Additionally, a mini triangular-shaped stage has been added to the room’s exterior, which lets the little stars sing or perform tunes they enjoy the most.

The concept of the dance classroom is to have a space that moves together with its participants. With a translucent curtain, people on the outside can view the dancing silhouettes, transforming the design of the space itself as a direct extension of the participants actions. With the addition of interactive visual content projected on the curtain, the viewers can enjoy a mix of real and animated motions that constantly move and change throughout the day.

Finally, in the design of the NYC Kids Club, we have included the Five Senses Corners. These space additions are intended to enhance children’s explorative needs by triggering certain narratives and stimuli by utilizing a range of compositions of selected materials and media systems.

A fundamental consideration in the approach of this project has been to perfectly balance play with learning. Students form new habits through playful interpretations and interactions (i.e., rewarding sounds when certain activities done correctly like washing hand and flushing), and learning emerges from the formation of meaningful and creative experiences; here, the design itself becomes a learning supporting agent.

Architect: DU Studio
Photography: Ping Zhu