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06.11.07
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A Space Of Their Own
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By Paul Abelsky
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Autistic Children in Moscow Benefit from a Unique Facility
In the north of Moscow, past the Ostankino tower and into the dreary Khrushchev-era jungle of brick monoliths for the masses, stands an oasis of individuality and exuberance. Unlike the usual suspects that feature prominently in present-day Russian design magazines – shopping malls, skyscrapers and elite residential complexes – this building is a school and rehabilitation center for children with autism. In a country where schools of any kind receive little attention from architects and planners, and where autism is too often treated with clumsy and outdated methods, the building designed by Moscow architect Andrei Chernikhov is one of the turning points for post-Soviet Russian architecture and an important step toward a greater understanding of autism.
Financed from the limited municipal budget, the venue, whose full name is the Center of Psychological, Medical and Social Support for Children and Adolescents, is a rare example of dedicated professionals from the design community working together with mental health specialists to create an environment attuned in equal measure to the highest standards of architecture and to the needs of the people using the building.
The center came about as a dramatic overhaul of an existing two-story kindergarten with a small courtyard. It became the first specialized facility of this kind in the country, even though the most conservative estimate of people afflicted with autism in Russia puts the number at 40,000. The project made a brief splash in Russian design circles when it was completed in September 2000, becoming a fixture on the architecture circuit of visitors to the Russian capital, but its mission remains to cater to the children and the parents who often feel cast off from society and the public school system at large.
Autism has come under increased scrutiny recently, but its deeper causes remain largely unknown. The so-called assistive technologies, customized for people with mental disabilities, have begun to emerge only over the past decade in the West, and there were few precedents anywhere for creating an environment for autistic children when Chernikhov set out to design the school. Completed in 2000, the project actually predated such ambitious recent buildings as the Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Institute at the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, which opened in 2003, or an extension for St. Coletta of Greater Washington, an organization that oversees a program for children and adults with mental retardation and autism, designed by the respected architectural firm Michael Graves & Associates.
Pioneering projects appeared in recent years from England to South Korea, and design schools have launched interdisciplinary classes that focus on assistive products and technologies, ranging from computer games to devices that help read social cues. But autism is a variable and poorly understood developmental disorder, and no single approach can address the range of problems faced by the children. The challenge for Chernikhov was then to forge an environment that accommodates, soothes and engages the mindset of kids suffering from autism. Chernikhov says he sought to create a protective space that would also reach out to the surroundings, a place with “room for imagination.”
Although the first encounter with the building is almost disorienting, as its riveting cascade of forms and color marks a sharp break in the gray suburban continuum, the project is at once a study in spatial estrangement and an effort to create a place that balances a sense of isolation with genuine affection for the outside world. Chernikhov spent time with autistic kids and their parents, looked through children’s artworks, consulted with experts and drew on reams of medical literature in designing the complex but in the end, he says, the idea came to him in a dream.
The architect arrived at a metaphorical solution that uses archetypal geometrical forms – circles, squares, triangles, spirals – to organize the environment, crafting a layered, non-linear building that indulges in its own eccentricity. The shapes perforating the structure’s shell outside and within also disrupt the sense of scale, establishing a logic all their own. “Similarly to when kids mold a sand castle, poking holes for doors and windows, there is an impression that some giant has played with the fa?ade like a child, jabbing openings into the exterior,” Chernikhov said. “The repetition of the simplest geometric forms provides an introduction to a kind of basic universal syntax that governs the outside world.”
Chernikhov was appealing to the abstract reasoning that is highly developed among autistic children. But what also characterizes the illness is impaired social interaction, and the center’s design is an attempt to foster an ability to communicate by adapting the building as a space of transition to the outside. It is a key theme, with a gradation of small spaces leading to larger open areas. The sweeping atrium at the heart of the center is the dominant organizing element, creating striking perspectives across the interior.
Making a break with predictable and understated institutional design, the layout, color scheme and overall patterning are endlessly varied; some 50 colors are used on the outside, superimposed on the irregular geometry of the structure itself. At times, the interlocking forms make the building resemble a jigsaw, and Chernikhov says he conceived of the building as a kind of puzzle, which he has tried to outline and disentangle in the design.
One man's mission
Vladimir Kasatkin, who has directed the center for six years, is reticent when asked how the children have responded to the building. Most are introverted and tend to block out social interaction and visual stimuli. “Autistic children don’t say much, but no one has ever walked out because of the unusual design” he said. “But there is a sense of beauty which is shared by the teachers, parents and staff, a desire to move toward and rejoice in it, and that is what’s conveyed to the children. In the end, however, the children just want to be loved.”
The center combines rehabilitation services for the youngest children with an elementary school that covers the first four grades. Abnormalities in the mental development of autistic children cover a wide spectrum of symptoms, meaning that each child requires an individual approach. Kasatkin relates a story of a parent from a region outside Moscow, who sought help for an autistic child. Local mental health care providers diagnosed him as an “imbecile,” but the methodology developed by the Moscow center’s specialists established that the child had advanced math skills and general aptitude despite an apparent inability, or unwillingness, to speak.
Children spend anywhere from two hours a week to six hours daily in the center, often accompanied by their parents. According to Kasatkin, to a great extent his mission is to inform the parents about the ways to understand and converse with the kids, organize the space around them and pursue their interests. For all the new research on the possible genetic and environmental causes of autism, there are no medical remedies available. A timely intervention, sustained behavior therapy and special education early in life offer the only treatment, helping the children acquire the social, physical and communication skills to cope with their problems.
Early diagnosis and education, therefore, are vital. Aside from social and mental impairments, the children also face a range of physical disabilities. Kasatkin takes a visitor to a class where three kids aged between 5 and 6, each guided by their mothers and school instructors, work on improving their motor skills. The children are sprawled on place mats, visibly laboring through sets of exercises interspersed with short meditation sessions. Occasional outbursts interrupt the routine. As the parents try to cajole the kids to repeat some basic movements, Kasatkin paces around the room, trying to coach the parents on the reasoning behind the distinct activities as they affect physical abilities and muscle groups.
“The only way to treat the children is to work intensely with each one on social and physical development,” Kasatkin says later. “The earlier a kid is diagnosed, the more intensive and goal-oriented the therapy and the exercises, the more chances for improvement and rehabilitation. A lot depends on the parents’ commitment.”
Not quite perfect
The simple d?cor of the room where the class is held, one of a cluster of small spaces off the corridor that ambles around the central atrium, suggests that the elaborate design was only partly implemented on the inside. Kasatkin says budgetary constraints left Chernikhov strapped throughout the project, but the limitations resulted in particular drawbacks on the interior, leading to cutbacks on equipment, furniture, building materials.
Still, the airy, resonant space includes an orangerie at one end, with a sprinkling of plants, birds, and pets, as well as a hallway on the ground floor that is known as Arbat for its street-like lampposts and a processional feel. Chernikhov agrees that ambitions have outpaced the available funds. “The municipal authorities take great pride in the building, but they are not doing enough to maintain it or to carry out some of our original plans,” he said. “For the atrium, we designed special exercise machines, shaped in the form of letters, but the money for them never materialized.”
Education and therapy at the center are only free to Moscow residents, and such specialized facilities still remain an exception in Russia. The design of special education schools has an important role to play in cultivating a sensitive, hospitable environment – open, stimulating and peaceful at the same time. The multi-level but uncluttered space of the building offers a prelude to the complexities of the world outside. How the autistic children perceive this microcosm around them will remain one of the project’s unanswered mysteries. |
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