Julia Metelkina on How Children's Spaces with Meaning are Born.

We receive a variety of requests, ranging from "children's theater in the National Museum of Oman" to "activities for children in a resort with an area of 35 hectares." Sometimes it's as simple as "we have 50 square meters, make it 'wow.'"

We always "dance" according to the values of the place where we will be building. There was a case where we were approached with plans to construct a sports center with activities for both children and adults. The request was to fill one floor (about 2000 square meters) with a children's recreational space. The atmosphere of the place inspired the idea of creating a sports museum for the whole family. From there, we started developing this concept. What experience do we want to provide for children? - Trying themselves in various sports. What conclusions should a child draw after visiting the museum? - That sports involve hard work. How can we make it exciting? - Organizing battles with records and, at the same time, telling stories of great athletes. Do we need a patriotic component? - Yes, so it will focus on local athletes. Besides athletes, who else contributes to sporting achievements? - It's the teamwork, engineers in the service of sports, and high technology. Interactive exhibits on technological solutions and their evolution will be included. How can we support family visits to make it interesting for parents too? And what about the little ones?... And so on.

An important question we always ask is whether it should be a self-sustaining business. Or is it a "supporting" story to promote the main profit center, with a focus on operational break-even? Or is it a cost center, considered by the client as an investment in increasing sales? The latter option may involve free children's activities at a family resort. Having our own projects, we understand that the budget can be significantly reduced through creative solutions, and children will find it interesting regardless of the degree of multimedia content. They enjoy playing in wooden houses as much as amid multimedia screens; perhaps the former may even captivate them longer. Sometimes, the simpler the environment, the more varied the game, but high-quality content, filling, and play props are still needed everywhere. And we always remember that the main task is to create objects filled with meaning.

A crucial question is, what will children of different ages do? If it's a very small children's playroom, we solve this problem through tiering, filling walls, and vertical surfaces with multimedia elements. It's much more interesting when the client is a family resort covering 35 hectares. In such cases, we invent a whole legend into which our little guests enter. It may start with a board game given to all guests at the reception. The game is always related to the resort's theme: it could be eco-tourism and exploring nature, a journey into the fascinating history of the local community, or popularizing the family hobbies of adults to share with children... The patterns and motives of this developed play can be reflected both in the children's room and in the eco-trail around the area. Separate "missions" are integrated into multimedia tables placed in the areas where adults "hang out."
Logistics are crucial here – a mother stays at the spa reception, and the child should be engaged for 5 minutes without bothering her, for which we have 1 square meter of space. This way, we unite children's activities into a single story, and during the vacation, the child lives through a unique experience in a truly amazing, fantastic universe closely intertwined with the family's pastime. The development of such a "drive for knowledge" from an early age is our ultimate goal. If learning something new is associated with joy from childhood, a person will continue to develop throughout their life. But that's a topic for another article...

Repeat visits matter. If it's a space where children don't come just once, such as a children's playroom in a hotel, where the average family stay is 7-10 days, it must remain interesting for the child. This is challenging but achievable: the game then involves several levels, as if immersing into a new depth each day. This is achieved through a variety of props and the versatility of the environment, while maintaining its complexity.

Julia Metelkina,
CEO of the creative bureau KidsForce