EMOTIONAL DESIGN AND AFRO-FUTURISM IN REDESIGNING KARIOBANGI OUTREACH CHILDREN’S HOME

The mission of every children’s home is to provide a safe environment for orphaned children to grow, learn and become responsible adults that are able to give back to their community. There have been vast discussions on improving the state of children’s homes, transforming the facilities from an institution like establishment to a homelier and safe environment for the children. Considering the trauma that the children have been through, their psychological health is as important. This project sought to go a step further to create a therapeutic environment at kariobangi Outreach children’s home with the use of emotional design principles to cater to the children’s psychological needs.
Kariobangi outreach children’s home is situated in kariobangi. It takes care of orphaned children from Kariobangi and offers them primary school education within its compound. In particular, this project focuses on the areas of interior architecture, exhibition and display, landscaping, and furniture concepts in order to tackle the psychological struggles encountered by the children and proposed relevant changes.
Once on the site, the researcher observed how the children and staff interacted with the environment around them. She was able to take photos and have informal discussions with the children, the parents taking care of the children and staff members like cooks and security guards. From the observations made by the researcher, Kariobangi Outreach children’s home has catered for the basic needs of the children such as shelter, food and education but does not have the infrastructure to accommodate the psychological needs of the children.
In doing a review of what other researchers have done in relation to emotional design and therapeutic environments, the researcher went on to look for information from sources in the library such as books and thesis. The researcher also acquired a lot of information from online journals and articles. From the finding and observation, the researcher proposed the implementation of emotional design through color and shape psychology as well as a healing garden. She concluded that interior architecture, landscaping, furniture, exhibition and display at Kariobangi outreach children’s home would benefit the children more when they are designed to assist in providing therapy as well as their primary functions.