In many residential centres the levels of noise may be loud, very loud or @#$%*& loud. Similarly the activity level may range between rough, boisterous and wild man! A derivative of Parkinson’s Law might state that noise and activity will expand to fill the space provided.

So the people who designed your centre thought it would be nice to devote generous space for recreation where there’s a table tennis table, a kerrim board and a football machine – and the scale of the room gets to dictate the scale of the action and the racket ... big.

The down side is that in large spaces behaviours (in order to make some impact) must be exaggerated and communications must generally be shouted, not spoken. Also, everything gets to happen in public: arguments draw crowds, breakdowns happen in public, in-groups and out-groups are emphasised, and the kids (and staff) are generally over-stimulated.

The people who designed such a centre were wrong. Especially for kids who must be in our centre. When it comes to spaces, it is always a good idea to have a progression of sizes — from the small and private ... to space for small group interactions ... and eventually to larger areas. Kids will choose spaces which are comfortable for what they want to do. We know that anxious kids need a sense of "control" of their spaces and they are overwhelmed when they are living in a ratio of 1:10 or 1:20 or worse. We also know that kids who always pick the crowd scenes need scaled-down human experiences. (Much of our work involves moving unconfident and defensive behaviour outwards towards being more assertive and expressive; and moving aggressive and destructive behaviour inwards towards being more co-operative and other-oriented.)

So for staff. Life space work is difficult when it becomes a spectator sport. We should not have to bring a youngster "to the office" every time we need to communicate something personal. Drawing a youth aside needs a place aside. Practising a new behaviour does not always need a large audience.

If we have inherited a centre which has a limited range of spaces – industrial rather than human-scaled – our next project may be to buy some timber, boarding and doors, hammers and nails, then hire some kids and design something more useful.