At the turn of the millennium, attitudes and actions towards children are increasingly contradictory and complex. This work explores these apparent contradictions and complexities through a critique of the concept of children's services.

* Discover the impact of emerging childcare strategy on architecture and design internationally * Learn from the broad knowledge of the well respected contributors * Specific policy information provides design guidance

To many of us the idea of having children is synonymous with bidding farewell to being in control of our homes. Judith Wilson, mother of two, shows how homes can be adapted for children without surrendering order and good taste--while also ensuring that children have their own wonderful spaces to enjoy. Judith's wise and witty text, combined with lively photography by Debi Treloar, captures the potential for a happy and stylish mix of children and home.*A wealth of inspiration drawn from the homes of real families, Judith showcases rooms for children between birth and ten years old.*Covering ideas ranging from full-scale decorative schemes to clever finishing touches.*100,000 copies sold in hardcover.

How can young children play an active role in developing the design of learning environments? What methods can be used to bring together children’s and practitioners’ views about their environment? What insights can young children offer into good designs for these children’s spaces? With the expansion of early childhood education and the move to 'extended schools', more young children will spend more time than ever before in institutions. Based on two actual building projects, this book is the first of its kind to demonstrate the possibilities of including young children’s perspectives in the design and review of children’s spaces. Situated at the heart of the debate about the relationship between the built environment and its impact on children’s learning and wellbeing, Transforming Children’s Spaces provides insights into how young children see their environment discusses children’s aspirations for future spaces develops the 'Mosaic approach' , pioneered by the author, as a method for listening to young children and adults Emphasising the importance of visual and verbal methods of communication, this fascinating book demonstrates how practitioners and young children can articulate their perspectives, and shows how participatory methods can support new relationships between children, practitioners and architects. This book is essential reading for those who work in children's spaces and for those who design them as well as being of general interest to those studying education and childhood studies.

As a developmental psychologist with a strong interest in children's re sponse to the physical environment, I take particular pleasure in writing a foreword to the present volume. It provides impressive evidence of the con cern that workers in environmental psychology and environmental design are displaying for the child as a user of the designed environment and indi cates a recognition of the need to apply theory and findings from develop mental and environmental psychology to the design of environments for children. This seems to me to mark a shift in focus and concern from the earlier days of the interaction between environmental designers and psy chologists that occurred some two decades ago and provided the impetus for the establishment of environmental psychology as a subdiscipline. Whether because children-though they are consumers of designed environments are not the architect's clients or because it seemed easier to work with adults who could be asked to make ratings of environmental spaces and comment on them at length, a focus on the child in interaction with en vironments was comparatively slow in developing in the field of environ ment and behavior. As the chapters of the present volume indicate, that situation is no longer true today, and this is a change that all concerned with the well-being and optimal functioning of children will welcome.

The aim of this project is to enable a 'meeting of minds' between the avant-garde pedagogical philosophy of the Reggio Emilia preschools and innovative experiences within the culture of design and architecture.