"The Little School came to understand the importance of providing a sense of place and an architectural marker for even the youngest of students," says Horton. "We developed the idea that the Little School's building is a concrete symbol for the importance of what occurs within it. Every day, children are brought to a place that is not just a holding tank, but in fact an important condition or place that helps them learn, become excited and understand the meaning of their actions within a larger group."

The building occupied by The Little School is a former gymnasium that belonged to a Catholic parish. The space is comprised of approximately 8,500 square feet on the ground floor and a mezzanine level, where there is a storage room, office and parent/teacher lounge. When design work began, the directive called for building four classrooms on the ground level. Horton, however, saw this as an opportunity to create a condition of thinking for the school's nearly 100 young students, one of whom happens to be his.

The need for a wall developed out of the request for classrooms, as well as building code requirements. The question became, then, how should the wall manifest itself. Eventually, Horton developed the idea of a canted wall shaped like an S-curve. The cant narrows and widens along the curve, reaching its widest point at the two bulges. At these two points, the wall is three feet thick at floor level.

Taking the concept even further, Horton punctuated and punctured the wall. All along the wall are openings for children to crawl through, sit in and peek out. Cantilevered planes jut out to provide spots for sitting or standing. (Horton laughs now, but at the time he and his staff spent hours trying to make sure children wouldn't be able to use the cantilevers for wall climbing. Of course, they climb anyway.) Add to this a few bright colors and the wall becomes an abstract element for which the children are constantly inventing new uses.

"All of these elements leave open the possibility of tremendous fantasizing on the part of the children," says Horton. "As an object, the wall can become a spaceship or forest. The wall as a divider becomes a dense mountain range or narrow garden, and as a space to be occupied, it becomes a bear cave or ocean liner. We intentionally made the wall abstract in order not to interfere with the children's imaginations. For example, there aren't any turrets or trompe l'oeil of bricks and stones to make a child think, 'Oh, it's a castle.' The wall can be whatever a child wants it to be and that can change from day to day."

For the children, the wall has become an identifiable transition point between inside and outside, open and closed, private and public, group and individual and numerous other dichotomies that children this age begin to discover. Many children use a specific spot along the wall to say their good-byes to mommy and daddy. In one classroom, the "blue window" has become the place to stand and wave to parents as they leave.

Constructed with studs and gypsum wall board, the wall was complex to build because of its curves, cants and holes. Reaching 11 1/2 feet high, the wall is narrow at the top, so that if and when the Little School expands to include classrooms on a second level, the top of the wall will act as a railing.

From inside the classrooms, the wall reads as an independent object, says Horton. And the holes in the wall seemingly add windows to otherwise window-less classrooms.

"Because the building was a gymnasium, none of the classrooms have windows to the outside," explains Horton. "This was a great concern to the parents. We weren't doing anything to the envelope of the building, so the holes in the wall became windows to the outside for the children."

The effect of these so-called windows is enhanced by four skylights, which do indeed bring daylight into the school. Furthermore, exposed ceiling joists run through the wall, thereby leaving classrooms open to the skylights.

The ceiling is painted sky blue. Custom designed light fixtures not only help bring the ceiling height down to kid scale, but also give the illusion of white clouds floating against a blue sky.

Horton says The Little School became an enlightened client, which previous to this project did not know the value good architecture can bring to a learning environment. But the response to the wall from the children was so exceptional that the school reorganized a limited summer program around the theme of introducing architecture and spaces to four- and five-year-olds.