Industrial - Bachelors
‘The Calm Corner’ is a space that strives to keep junior school children in the classroom when they need to regulate their excited bodies. It is an area where a child can take a deliberate journey through a safe environment, unlike their usual classroom.
For this project, I really wanted to focus on and solve a problem in the educational sector. I identified ADHD in early junior schooling being an issue after helping out in my sister’s prep classroom. Classrooms are too stimulating and don’t facilitate a calm area for children to utilise. Children would be walking out of class and missing crucial teaching time because they needed a change in environment. I realised this problem was widespread after conducting a plethora of interviews and observations in multiple classrooms.
I started designing a solution and focused on 4 main criteria for whatever I created. These criteria were drawn from the research gathered and represented the teacher’s best ideas of what was necessary for a new product.
Space – I wanted kids to be in or around a space
Environment – I wanted the design to change a classroom’s stimulating environment
Reflection – I wanted the solution to allow children to reflect and decide if they wanted to rejoin the classroom
Time – I wanted children to be mindful of time limits and restraints with this design
Throughout this design, I constantly brought my prototypes into the classroom. I let the kids use (and sometimes abuse) whatever prototype I had that week. This helped me realise what was essential to the design, and what I could leave out. One of the most significant changes to the design happened when a child took a book into one of my prototypes, triggering the idea for an internal bookshelf.
The Calm Corner is a canvas, ready for a class to paint it, and mould it to their specific needs.
The Calm Corner has been designed to facilitate a journey with a start and end point. A child enters through one crawlway, completes a task like reading a book or completing a puzzle, and then exits through the other crawlway. This deliberate journey takes place in a space completely removed from a normal classroom environment. It removes a child from overstimulation and focuses their mind on successfully completing a task. The completion of this task reminds a child of the time and prompts them to reflect on whether they can rejoin the class. The Calm Corner achieves all 4 of the design criteria it set out to meet.
One of this design’s most unique selling points is its ability to be a canvas for any classroom. It can change its location in a classroom, its exterior cloth, and the interior layout. However, setting up the design is quick and simple enough for any teacher to do. The slide-in joiners for the wood boards are simply pushed on the corners and edges of the boards. The stand is also simple with a pin design going through the whole assembly. This simplistic setup was created so even a prep class could set up The Calm Corner together.
The Calm Corner gives you a canvas to paint both the exterior and interior however your class wants. The one constant is the size of the corner, it has been specifically designed to create the same size space in any corner of the world. The exterior cloth can be themed, if a class has a jungle or space theme one semester, there can be a cloth that matches the rest of the classroom. If a classroom has sensory children, an iPad stand can be set up with headphones and video. This is a living space, designed to be constantly adapted and changed in a classroom.
I want this project to start a conversation about how ADHD is viewed in junior schooling. Creating a change of atmosphere inside a classroom can have a massive change on keeping kids in the classroom. I have set up this design in prep classrooms and seen it used to regulate excited bodies and return them back to class. I hope this project can inspire teachers to set up their own calm corners in classrooms and adapt the space to whatever their needs may be.
Harry is a designer who embraces youthful creative thinking to solve problems he's faced with. With a passion for business and education, designing is how he helps others through his products.