“For a school to thrive, it needs to be a place where children feel they belong”. So says Dave Judge, executive creative director at Space Zero, my third guest in the Russell Speirs and Friends podcast series.
Dave spent 25 years working with brands like Adidas, Porsche and Virgin, designing experiences for their customers which make them want to stay in their stores and enjoy being there. He now applies the same thinking to schools with his work at Space Zero.
In our conversation, he tells me how, by designing schools with children in mind rather than with a sense of “functionality and conservative sobriety”, we can make schools places where children want to be and where they feel they belong, leading to positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing.
“Look at the places that children like to go to…go to a mall on a Saturday afternoon and walk around the shops you wouldn’t normally go to, the shops the kids are in”.
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
-Russell