No kidding with this room

By Ananya Suresh

A kid’s bedroom  – whether it be  the largest room  in the house or  a cupboard under the staircase, is the one  with the most personality. The  natural curiosity in children  makes them creative in space  adornment.

Seldom will you find a child’s  room without the stamp of its  owner. The sketches and posters on the wall, the stickers on  the headboard, Lego blocks on  the floor – are expressions of  exploding creativity and the alternate universe that the occupants would rather be living in.

Provide a child with a canvas to express their thoughts  and ideas and you can be certain that filling it will never be  a problem for them. Now, what  if this canvas came in the form  of their room? A place of their  own to express their incredible  personalities in. Ten-year-old  Alia Rai’s room keeps changing themes every other day.  Ask her how she would want  her room to be in the future,  and the response is “Ally style.”

Recall what were the spaces  that you as a child liked to be  in? Cosy nooks that can be  crawled into, elevated platforms that can be climbed up to  – anything but the boring floor  level. Keeping that in mind  interior designers are bringing adventure into children’s  bedrooms. Like a loft-bed they  can climb up to by a rockclimbing wall. How about  vertical and horizontal ladders in the form of monkey  bars. Or even a block wooden  staircase that can double up  as a storage unit.

If your child is less physical and more expressive then  convert a wall into a blackboard with chalkboard paint.  And your child can draw and  draw on this designated creativity wall. Pin boards and  whiteboards can be added to  make study time a fun experience. A child’s space adapts to the  changing personality of the inhabitant as they grow older, absorbing memories as the years  pass by. It’s a place that keeps  changing, witnessing a transition of personality. It provides the environment where  the child will be enriched and  nourished into a confident,  expressive adult. Beyond the  fun and enjoyment that a child  would want in their room,  children’s rooms require a lot  of storage space: whether it be  clothes, books, shoes, or toys.

Even simple changes can  convert a child’s room from a  perfunctory room to the pride  of place. One such example  would be Chitra, whose daughter Chesta’s room turned from  one of the least used rooms to  be the one that even adults use  now to gather in.

Give children a creatively  designed space, and you can  be certain that the adults of  the future will return the creativity back multi-fold. That  sounds like a good investment.

(The author is an architect who is passionate about  writing and specialises in  creating architectural  narratives.)