Future-proof public kid infrastructure
6' read - published October, 1st 2025
Have you ever noticed how grown-ups design places for us, but sometimes forget to ask what we actually like? I’ve been to schools that feel like boring boxes, and parks that look pretty but don’t let you run, climb, or play the way you want. But guess what? There are people all over the world who are changing that!
They’re creating tiny cities built at our scale, stacking playgrounds high in the sky, and even designing hospitals kids actually like visiting. Some are making classrooms that stay cool without air conditioning, parks where we get to be in charge of traffic so we can learn how to navigate it safely, and places where everyone — even kids who can’t see well — can learn, explore, and play together.
This is a story about clever ideas that make our cities and schools better for kids like me. It’s about spaces where we can learn, play, feel safe, and truly belong. Come with me, and I’ll show you what the world could look like if it was built for children first.
Temporary and flexible educational spaces
Schools often need to adapt quickly to changing student populations. For example, in French-speaking Switzerland, forecasts anticipate a temporary decline in student numbers until around 2030, followed by renewed growth by 2040. Although births fell sharply between 2022 and 2024, immigration will continue to drive pupil numbers up. By 2040, projections indicate a need for +80 classes in Vaud and +265 in Geneva, reflecting the inflow of families with children. This phenomenon is not unique to Switzerland but can also be observed in other developed countries(1).
Modular and flexible school designs make these transitions manageable, offering a model for resource-efficient education. In Budapest, the German School converted shipping containers into modular classrooms, reusing materials and preserving surrounding trees while creating bright, expandable learning spaces. Originally intended as temporary structures, these Container classrooms have gradually become a permanent part of the school, showing that even re-used shipping containers can provide high-quality, inspiring spaces. The building’s modular design allows for future expansion, while the use of containers ensures rapid construction and adaptability — a crucial response to the school’s urgent need for additional classrooms.
Zurich’s Gloriarank sports hall demonstrates another approach. Built with prefabricated wooden elements, it allows for fast assembly, relocation, and minimal waste. The facility is designed to serve as a temporary sports hall for around 10 years, accommodating students from nearby universities and schools while their main campus undergoes renovation.
Similarly, Geneva’s Modular schools use prefabricated timber structures designed to be temporary and relocatable, offering adaptable solutions to the city’s changing needs. Prefabrication allows for rapid construction, meeting urgent demands for additional classrooms. These projects illustrate that flexibility, efficiency, and sustainability can coexist in educational design.
Optimizing space for learning and play
The arrangement of classrooms, playgrounds, and recreational areas directly affects children’s learning, creativity, and social interaction. Thoughtful design makes the most of limited space while offering safe and inspiring environments(2).
At Melopee School, limited space in a highly urbanized area led to a vertically conceived school, with playgrounds and sports fields stacked to maximize play opportunities without expanding the school’s footprint. In Brussels, the De Zinnekes daycare added a crèche on top of the school, creating not only additional space but also a continuous learning path that guides children from early childcare into primary education, while offering a vibrant social and exploratory rooftop environment.
Saunalahti School in Finland goes further, functioning as a genuine community hub. To address the lack of natural light in winter, the school is designed with large windows and careful orientation that maximize daylight. During the long winter months, it even becomes an indoor community square, offering a warm and welcoming gathering place for both students and local residents. The building includes a library, multipurpose areas, and quiet corners, while its flexible classrooms and movement-friendly spaces foster concentration, well-being, and social interaction across the school and the wider community.
Colour Paradise school in Beijing uses vibrant colors to support children’s development and daily routines. Different hues are assigned to different age groups—blue for calm focus, green for balance and tranquility, and orange to stimulate energy and creativity—helping spaces guide both quiet and active activities. The thoughtful color coding turns the school into a playful, yet structured environment that encourages learning and well-being.
In Germany, the Spielchischte nursery was added to an existing farm, giving children daily contact with animals to stimulate curiosity, reduce stress, and support emotional development, while also generating extra income for the farm.
Climate-responsive and sustainable schools
Extreme climate events increasingly disrupt education. In 2024, heatwaves alone affected approximately 171 million students worldwide, contributing to absenteeism, reduced cognitive performance, and growing inequality in regions without climate-resilient infrastructure(3). Architects are responding by designing schools that prioritize natural cooling, indoor air quality, and energy efficiency.
At the Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School in India, a circular layout and thick walls capture and channel breezes, enhancing natural ventilation without relying on mechanical systems. École Simone Veil in France leverages thermal mass and passive airflow to maintain comfortable temperatures year-round, showing that energy-intensive cooling is not always necessary. The building features an efficient envelope with 47 cm-thick straw-insulated walls, Métisse® insulated roofs, and a Foamglas® insulated ground floor. Natural ventilation is supported by a heat recovery systemand a Canadian well, while overnight over-ventilation ensures the building stays cool during the day by taking advantage of the thermal inertia of the materials.
The Arve system offers a way to retrofit existing buildings, improving indoor air quality through advanced ventilation systems and non-toxic materials — a solution particularly important in areas with poor air quality, such as China — creating healthier learning environments.
Meanwhile the Greenschool in Bali integrates classrooms into the jungle landscape using open bamboo structures that allow natural ventilation and unobstructed views of the surrounding forest. The campus layout incorporates organic permaculture systems, rice fields, and gardens, giving students daily hands-on experiences in sustainability, environmental stewardship, and living in harmony with nature.
Enhancing child-friendly public spaces
Beyond safety and accessibility, urban spaces can nurture creativity, independence, and resilience when designed thoughtfully.
Copenhagen’s Fælledparken allows children to practice riding bikes safely, promoting independence and coordination. Digital tools like BoxUp let children borrow sports equipment on demand, making play spontaneous and accessible, while Risky playgrounds in Melbourne offer managed challenges that teach problem-solving and resilience. The Computer Playground in Helsinki turns abstract coding lessons into hands-on problem-solving activities, showing how even playground spaces can support imaginative learning. Barcelona’s Plan for Play demonstrates a city-wide commitment to children: by 2030, streets, squares, and parks will be fully “playable,” with weekend street closures and water or sand play areas.
Health, safety, and inclusivity
Inclusive design ensures that all children, regardless of age or ability, can participate in public life confidently and safely. In Gandhinagar, India, the School for the Blind and visually impaired children employs multisensory design strategies to guide students through the building and outdoor spaces. Varying corridor widths create distinct auditory cues, tactile floor textures support navigation, fragrant courtyard plants provide olfactory orientation, and carefully controlled natural light minimizes glare, helping children move independently and safely.
In Switzerland, the Kinderspital Zürich hospital emphasizes natural light, landscaped courtyards, and warm wood facades, transforming a clinical setting into a welcoming, safe, and emotionally supportive environment — even the operating rooms are designed to feel less clinical, reducing stress for young patients.
Child-friendly design extends far beyond schools and hospitals. Everyday public spaces can become inclusive, engaging environments for children. Retail experiences such as Mini-Migros — a 100 m² mobile attraction that traveled to shopping centers across Switzerland in 2023 to offer a fun supermarket role-play experience — and candy shops like Tyrol-Do in Ikoma City, Japan, which also function as informal after-school care spaces, demonstrate how thoughtful design can enhance daily life. These spaces provide opportunities for learning, social interaction, play, and support beyond the school day. 3D crosswalks improve pedestrian safety by visually alerting drivers while offering children a playful, interactive way to navigate streets.
Benefits for adults and the community
Spaces designed for children often improve life for adults. The French retirement home Jardins d’Haïti also welcomes children and young workers, creating daily opportunities for intergenerational exchange and community life. In the United States, Bridge Meadows brings foster families and older residents together, creating shared spaces that enhance social well-being. Urban business districts also benefit: even in smog-filled areas in China, playgrounds such as Big Bang and Magma Flow activate office areas and attract pedestrians back to city streets.
Airports such as Singapore’s Changi Airport provide play areas where children can expend energy before flights, reducing stress for families, while the Airport Connector pathway, on the way to the airport, creates additional interactive play zones for travelers and locals alike, featuring a bike rental and storage area, a dinosaur-themed playground, and a café. In Beirut, the Cities for Play project has transformed an ordinary concrete staircase into a playful public space through community workshops that involved children in the design process, including using Minecraft to propose ideas. The stairs now feature slides, speaking tubes, shaded seating, and vibrant colors, turning a simple path into a lively area for play, socializing, and connection for residents of all ages.
Care Blocks in Bogotá are community hubs designed to support unpaid caregivers—predominantly women—by offering integrated services such as childcare, eldercare, vocational training, and wellness programs. In these centers, children are often cared for by other mothers, allowing caregivers to pursue personal development and self-care while their dependents receive attentive care. This approach fosters greater social inclusion and helps reduce the gendered burden of unpaid labor.
And this matters more than you might think. Today, over one billion children live in cities(4), and by 2050, nearly three in five kids worldwide will grow up in urban areas(5). Yet too often, the spaces around them aren’t designed with children in mind: one in five children lacks access to a safe play area, and millions attend schools in crumbling buildings or without enough outdoor space to run and explore. Even in wealthy countries, inequalities are stark — in England, private school pupils have ten times more outdoor green space than children in state schools(6).
When cities get it right, the difference is tangible. Playing in green, open spaces can boost memory and learning, lower stress, and improve physical health(7). Walkable neighborhoods encourage more active lifestyles, while sustainable school designs lower operating costs, and create healthier indoor environments. Child-friendly urban design supports physical activity, social interaction, and emotional development, benefiting both children and the wider community.
All we want is a place where we can play, learn, and feel safe. Cities made for children remind us that happiness and wonder belong to everyone, no matter our age.
(1) Source: Patrizia Rdoio, 24heures.ch, How demographics will influence school requirements, August 20th, 2025
(2) Source: Feinberg, S., & Keller, J. R., Designing space for children and teens in libraries and public places. Chapter 10: Play and the Learning Environment, 2010
(3) Source: Unicef, Nearly a quarter of a billion children’s schooling was disrupted by climate crises in 2024, January 23th, 2025
(4) Source: Unicef, Strategic note on UNICEF’s work for children in urban settings, November, 2022
(5) Source: Unicef, The Future of Childhood in a Changing World, 2024
(6) Source: The Guardian, Revealed: students at top private schools have 10 times more green space than state pupils, June 16th, 2024
(7) Source: Dadvand et al., Green spaces and cognitive development in primary schoolchildren, 2015