The Third Teacher

To take children's creativity seriously means to provide them with spaces where they can experience the various fields of their interests and get professional guidance from real artists, educators and experts in the field. And children need not only studios where they can produce art but also galleries to present and discuss their works — just like adult artists. The Children's Museum of the Arts in New York (CMA) was founded as a private initiative in 1988 and started its program in a small space near Chinatown. Its pedagogical approach is based on strong involvement of parents and the idea that children should have some control over the direction of their learning. A high priority is given to the learning environment, which is considered as a "third teacher" (the parents being the first teachers). This also means providing children with studio space with enough daylight, and spaces to meet and present their works.

From the very beginning, CMA focused on hands-on art programs and the direct encounter of children with artists in an artists-in-residence program. With its growing success, the museum began a search for a larger space, and in 2010 it was able to secure space within an old converted printing house building in Hudson Square, a previously nameless district west of SoHo, close to the entrance of Holland tunnel — a neighborhood which is still mostly industrial in character. In recent years some creative companies have started to move into this area due to the large spaces available. The new CMA space is almost 930 square metres (10.000 square feet), more than triple the size of the first. After the outbreak of the financial crisis, the funding for the new space became more difficult, but the City of New York supported the move to the new location through funds for the equipment and furnishing of the rooms.

The ground floor location was the building's former loading dock, but it had the advantage of being easily accessible from the street and receiving generous amounts of daylight. To find an appropriate design for its new building, the board of CMA interviewed a dozen architecture offices, and New York's WORKac, founded by Dan Wood and Amale Andraos, persuaded the board of CMA with their playful sophistication. The architecture studio also offered the advantage of having successfully worked before with existing structures, such as in their 2007 renovation of an industrial building for the Diane von Furstenberg headquarters in Chelsea.

The existing structure of the building and the pedagogical approach shaped the space's program, which is basically divided in two levels: the studio spaces and the entry lobby, on the ground floor of the former loading dock, and the gallery space in the center. The architectural design is focused on a distribution from the entrance to the large central gallery space, passing through a series of smaller spaces that surround the gallery and organize circulation between the various programs and spaces. While the studio spaces themselves are like modernist "white boxes" in order to focus attention on art-making, the circulation space is colour-coded following the entire colour spectrum to allow a better and more playful orientation for children. At the lower level, younger kids and their parents can go from the lobby through a "stroller parking garage" to the Wee Arts Studio, specifically dedicated to arts programs for children from 1 to 5 years with painting, drawing, drumming and more. Above this stroller-room is the ball pond, which gives children the chance for some body exercise and is visible from the street.

Children above 5 years can access the art gallery on the upper level and enter from here to the various classrooms, art studios and a professionally equipped media lab in which workshops range from puppet and set building to stop motion animated filmmaking. A quiet room allows children to withdraw from the groups for some time and read; a clay bar transforms the idea of a Manhattan cocktail bar to offer children workshops in modeling clay creatures, facilitated by Media Lab teachers. A sound booth and a Soundscape engage children in working with music creation and production techniques.

The architectural design of Children's Museum of Arts accepts willingly the given conditions of the existing industrial spaces, keeping the structures clearly visible (including the open ducts and pipes on the ceilings), and connecting itself to its neighborhood with wide windows. The spaces that are oriented towards the back create a different atmosphere in which children can turn away from the surrounding city and follow their own paths, exploring the various offerings in the Labs and Studios in spaces that each have their individual character. Despite the project's tight budget and its specific space conditions, the architects have successfully turned all restrictions into great benefits for both the children and the Museum.