CREATIVITY, CULTURE, AND CONSTRUCTION: BRINGING DESIGN THINKING TO INDIGENOUS PRESCHOOLS

Abstract

"This paper presents the process of designing creative workshops that inform the construction of preschools in indigenous communities. The authors aim to answer the following: What is the most effective way to design and execute a workshop that enables community members of other cultures to create a preschool in their local neighborhood? How can this preschool foster and retain creativity among children through its architecture while remaining culturally celebratory and relevant? The authors use the Design Thinking process to develop a workshop for community leaders to conceptualize, ideate, and prototype these buildings. By combining discussion-based research on creativity in early education with the development process of the workshop (and its implementation in the Mayangna community in rural Nicaragua), the authors conclude that, to build a culture- and creativity-promoting workshop model that might be used around in preschool design around the world, the process must be highly adaptive, and indigenous voices must lead the project through longstanding relationships with continued input and redirection."