Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Schools In Focus: Designing a Kids' Kingdom

  • By Matt Jones
  • 02/14/23

Schools In Focus is a podcast dedicated to the design, planning and management of educational facilities and campuses. Listen in as we chat with industry experts, facility managers, architects, security and safety professionals, and other thought leaders. Catch up on previous episodes here.

Our guest today is Hiroshi Okamoto, principal and co-founder of OLI Architecture. He's here to tell us about Anji Play, an early childhood education facility in the Zhejiang province of China. Anji Play uses a hands-off, play-based learning pedagogy that encourages kids to be kids and lets them explore the environment under their own initiative. The school's architecture and design supports the program's key aim of self-determined play and encourages its guiding principles of love, risk, joy, engagement, and reflection to create a true "Kids' Kingdom." The curriculum is currently being practiced in public early childhood programs in all of China's 34 provinces and administrative regions, and it has expanded to pilot programs in Europe, Africa, and the United States.

Schools In Focus, Episode 33: Designing a Kids' Kingdom

 

Where to Listen

Schools In Focus is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Subscribe today, or listen below!

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Different Starting Points, Same End Goal

    Higher education campuses can enhance student experience by implementing mobile credentials to streamline building access, on-campus payments, and access to other amenities. This enables students to connect to their campuses through the technology they use most: their mobile devices.

  • sapling sprouting from a cracked stone

    Lessons in Resilience: Disaster Recovery in Our Schools

    Facility managers play a pivotal role in how well a school weathers and recovers from a crisis. Whether it's a hurricane, a flood, a tornado, or a man-made event, preparation determines resilience.

  • UNT Dallas Holds Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony for $100M STEM Building

    The University of North Texas at Dallas in Dallas, Texas, recently celebrated the opening of its new, $100-million STEM Building, according to local news. The ceremony on Dec. 2 preceded the first day of classes in the facility on Jan. 12, 2026.

  • Image courtesy of Kahler Slater

    UW–Madison Announces Completion of Morgridge Hall

    The University of Wisconsin–Madison recently announced that construction is complete on Morgridge Hall, a new academic building, according to a news release. The facility opened September 3 at the start of the fall semester, consolidating the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences into a single facility for the first time.