Research question: How can architecture facilitate and encourage movement in children aged two to six years old in the urban environment of Auckland City Centre?

Movement is fundamental for a child’s holistic development. Architecture has the potential to function as a stimulus for movement. Join the Dots utilises these statements as a catalyst for an architectural exploration, where the architecture facilitates and encourages movement. The focus of this project is an early childhood education centre, and urban connections within the context of the Victoria Park Market car park. The car park is located next to the newly refurbished Victoria Park Markets, within Auckland City Centre West which is predicted to experience the highest amount of residential growth, of the City Centre areas, by 2031. Join the Dots investigates current knowledge, visual connectivity, children’s interpretation of space, the typology of circulation, as well as the potential experience of movement. This research allows the development of an understanding into movement systems, and the potential encouragement through experience. These themes will then be applied and compared to architectural precedents, to create an understanding within the context of the built environment. The intention of the design, through the discovery and exploration of the potential of movement systems, is to develop an environment which facilitates and encourages its users to move. An environment which contains a curriculum, whereby the architecture aids this holistic development through the design for encouraged movement, within both a child care centre and within the wider urban environment. Purposed child care centre site:VIctoria Street West - Drake Street area, Auckland CBD