'Architexture': Reading the early years environment

This chapter presents the findings from an ongoing project to develop understanding about how the physical environment of early years settings might influence the staffand families who use them. The co-occurrence of particular features of buildings with particular activities develops our expectations of the kinds of activity that might take place in different kinds of building; we therefore learn to 'read' buildings as texts - hence our adoption of the term 'architexture' - and while this may not be something that we can readily articulate, the combinations of sensory, social and cultural affordances of a building can affect how comfortable we feel when approaching, entering and using that building. We describe here what happened when we shared these ideas with early years practitioners to support them in thinking about their settings' buildings and wider environment. This analysis enabled staffto evaluate the extent to which their buildings were 'hard to read' or 'easy to read'. We argue that such an analysis is particularly important when settings are trying to reach those participants or users who might be reluctant or uncertain users of the space.