In the fourth episode of the second season of the Knowledge Hub podcast, three guests from very different backgrounds sit down at the same table – and this is far from their first encounter. Their years of collaboration, culminating in the book Built environment education in kindergarten, have already yielded a number of fascinating projects. Alongside their most defining initiatives, they share the pedagogical convictions behind their work. The conversation touches on creative pedagogy, object-making, and how adults can be taught to use their senses more consciously, to perceive space in new ways, and to develop their mental maps. Join us for this exciting journey!

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Life paths and a great encounter

The duo of Gabriella Pataky and Judit Skaliczki at the kultúrAktív Association was joined by Viola Rekvényi, who initially supported her new colleagues as a teacher during the COVID pandemic. As the tone of the conversation reveals, the three found each other perfectly in the community of architects, landscape architects, urbanists, and educators. KultúrAktív uses the tools of built environment education to help young people and adults get to know, understand, and actively shape their living environment. In this spirit, they organise programmes for children in the form of live board games and community planning, train teachers in environmental education, and publish works – for example, Built environment education in kindergarten, co-authored by the podcast’s guests.

Gabriella Pataky works with visual education, which she considers the centre of her personal and professional search for meaning. In her work, she seeks to respond through visual culture to the challenges of the increasingly dynamic social and environmental changes around us. For almost two decades she has been exploring how to free kindergarten teacher trainees from formulaic – for example, colouring-book-based – thinking, and how to encourage them to seek creative, independent solutions with the help of contemporary art. It is important to her that the rising generations do not become alienated from their own era. She cites as a formative experience her encounter with Silke Edelhoff, one of the pioneers of built environment education, who had a profound influence on her perspective and pedagogical approach.

Judit Skaliczki originally graduated as an architect, and at the department of urban studies encountered the concepts of community planning and the city of the future, which defined the direction of her later interests. She joined several children’s camps related to built environment education, where they developed young people’s awareness and creativity in relation to the urban environment. She sees it as an important professional challenge to convey architectural knowledge and thinking in an understandable and experiential way to non-professionals. She sees great potential especially in involving teachers, who can play a mediating role in strengthening children’s relationship with the built environment. She is currently working on the subject within the framework of doctoral studies, in close cooperation with Gabriella.

Viola Rekvényi joined the team as a visual artist. Her career started at the intersections of art and design. She studied interaction design in Glasgow and animation at MOME. As she said, she “walked through open doors” into the world of built environment education. In her university research she examined how students’ learning habits and space usage practices changed during the COVID pandemic. The answers revealed that students often lacked even the vocabulary to articulate their experiences – this greatly reinforced her conviction of the importance of raising awareness of visual culture and space usage in education.

Joint volume: Built environment education in kindergarten

Built environment education is a relatively new, specialised educational field that aims to foster a conscious relationship with the physical environment. It seeks simultaneously to convey knowledge about the functioning of built space, to raise awareness of the social and cultural relations manifest in spaces, and to encourage active, responsible participation in shaping the environment.

The methodological approach places proactivity, questioning, creative problem-solving, and interactive learning at its centre. Respect for one another and for the environment is considered a basic attitude. All this is enabled not through abstract theories, but by reinterpreting everyday space use. Simple questions and everyday impulses help learners look around differently – for in the accelerated pace brought by urbanisation and multitasking lifestyles, we pay less and less attention to the space around us.

Among the methods is, for example, the exercise My way to the university, which encourages the conscious observation of everyday routes. Experience shows that, particularly when using public transport, the visual and spatial imprint of the route is almost completely erased – to reinterpret the experience, therefore, concrete observation criteria are needed. Environmental perception is not built solely on sight: all five senses are often activated, with roles such as smell or sound observers designated in each group. Opportunities also arise indoors, for example through frottage (shading a sheet of paper placed against school walls), which records the connection between space and learner both visually and through touch.

Reflective thoughts on the volume

In presenting the book, rather than content details, the pedagogical and educational perspective underlying its editing is emphasised.
The authors attach particular importance to positive messages and to encouraging formative evaluation. In visual education, students often judge their own performance too harshly, likely reinforced by their teachers.

The guests pointed out that the skills to be developed through environmental education – such as courage, experiential learning, physical perception, or independent observation – often encounter resistance due to overprotectiveness from teachers or parents. Children are frequently shielded from perceived dangers, messy activities, or the “costs” that often accompany outdoor learning. These precautionary constraints can restrict not only learning experiences but also the development of environmental sensitivity.

Environmental education also fosters cooperation. The shared experience of shaping space strengthens the ability to reflect on social relations. Yet this often clashes with entrenched beliefs in pedagogical practice. Phrases such as “this is how we’ve always done it” or “let’s paint it x colour, our eyes will get used to it” illustrate how difficult it is to break through the boundaries of habit – patterns that can persist for decades. A crucial thought expressed was that the environment is changeable – it can not only be studied and experienced, but also shaped.

Viola illustrated with a personal experience how space can become an active participant in learning. At the Kincskereső School, in Márta Winkler’s lessons, she encountered a learning environment where each class had two rooms – one a traditional classroom, the other a carpeted, homely space arranged together with the children. If attention waned, the teacher would move the class to the other room, where multisensory tasks helped regain focus. Viola believes this kind of spatial use brought a huge increase in effectiveness.

Learning desires outside the classroom

At one point the conversation touched on what happens when students are absent from the traditional school environment for extended periods – for example, during crises like the COVID period. Gabriella and her colleagues had already studied before the pandemic how children relate to creative spaces: they analysed around 900 students’ drawings after asking them to draw where they most liked to create (the concept of creation was clarified with them beforehand).

The results were telling: only four pupils depicted school environments, and they drew frontal teaching situations. In contrast:

• 48% identified their home as their favourite creative place, often depicting a loving, supportive atmosphere,
• 36% mentioned outdoor locations outside school – frequently including natural motifs and fine foods.

During the COVID period new aspects also surfaced. Many students in distance learning were embarrassed by the background visible in video calls, or felt disadvantaged due to weak internet connection or electricity supply. Researchers deliberately gave space for students to share these experiences and reflect on their learning environments. The resulting dialogues brought small but significant changes in individual learning spaces – through self-reflection, many students began to inhabit their environment in new ways and consciously shaped the conditions for learning at home.

Creation as a path to technical development and to oneself

Following a replication of a forty-year-old study, Gabriella concluded that today’s children show declines in visual abilities compared to earlier generations. This trend makes the conscious development of material culture in education even more urgent.

According to Viola, rethinking creation requires above all a shift in perspective rather than major financial investment. Introducing pedagogical practices based on spatial and object creation often calls for inexpensive but well-considered decisions. Gabriella added that sometimes it is enough to give space to the idea before implementation – that is, to allow time for concepts to emerge before expecting concrete results from children.
The joy of leaving a mark is a fundamental human experience, present even at a very early age: scribbling, building, and modelling clay are all part of the experience of creating something visible and lasting. The teacher’s role is to shape and nurture this instinctive creative drive – in two-dimensional space, for example, the process can lead from spontaneous scribbling to purposeful drawing, while in three dimensions it can begin with exploring forms and move on to experimenting with sculptures and spaces, which in turn inspires the design and making of functional objects.

Beyond enabling technical development, every such process also deepens students’ relationship with their environment and with themselves.
ways to connect with the guests

In addition to the jointly published volume, the participants of the conversation also mentioned several other ways to connect, inviting interested listeners and readers:

• The Department of Visual Education at ELTE TÓK is an important hub for pedagogy based on visual and material culture, offering pathways across several levels of training – from early childhood educators to primary teachers and visual educators. Their programme, called 3-6-12+, is recommended for early childhood practitioners, kindergarten teachers, primary teachers, and art teachers. Documentation of their work and the life of their alumni community can also be found on Instagram under the hashtag #3612plus.
• The contact details of all three guests are available on the department’s website.
• The Minimal Human Space series explores the smallest units of spaces used for everyday activities, aiming to raise awareness of spatial use. A collection documenting the stages of this series is available here.
• Research on personal creative spaces: as part of her doctoral dissertation, Viola is developing her own measurement tool to map students’ personal creative spaces – she welcomes collaboration with other experts on the methodology.

Members of the episode:

Dr Gabriella Pataky, associate professor, head of department

Gabriella Pataky is head of department and associate professor at ELTE’s Department of Visual Education, founder of the 3•6•12+ Visual Skills Research Workshop. Since 2011, she has taught in the Design and Visual Arts Teacher MA programme at MOME. She also earned her master’s degree there and carried out her doctoral research at ELTE PPK’s Doctoral School of Education, with her Ph.D. dissertation entitled Object making – object design in the visual education of 6-12 year-old children, in the light of diagnostic assessment. She is also editor-in-chief in the editorial artist group of InSEA IMAG::Magazine. Her current research fields include: built environment education, design pedagogy, the development and enhancement of visual competence elements, outdoor pedagogy, and international community art projects in teacher training.

Judit Skaliczki, assistant lecturer

Judit Skaliczki, DLA, architect, is an assistant lecturer at the Department of Visual Education, ELTE TÓK, invited reviewer of the InSEA IMAG Visual Journal, and member of the Bartók Visual Workshop. She completed both her university and doctoral studies at the Faculty of Architecture of BME. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the pedagogy of built environment education. Her current research areas include: built environment education, outdoor pedagogy, educational spaces and spatial design.

Viola Rekvényi

Viola Rekvényi is an interdisciplinary artist and doctoral candidate at ELTE PPK; she is also graphic editor of the InSEA IMAG Visual Journal. She completed her university studies at the Glasgow School of Art in Interaction Design and at MOME in Animation. Since 2020, she has been teaching at ELTE TÓK’s Department of Visual Education. Her main research interests include built environment education, spatial and material culture, participatory design, and inclusion.

Bertalan Péter Farkas, editor and host of Knowledge Hub podcast

Knowledge manager, knowledge management consultant, trainer, project manager – though originally a geography and history teacher. In his daily work, he serves as Director of Professional Affairs at one of the region’s largest educational technology companies, while focusing on knowledge management for educational and digital transformation. As an entrepreneur, he is passionate about learning environments and knowledge transfer. Having graduated in geography and history teaching and geography from ELTE, after a few years of teaching he worked at state agencies (Educatio, EMET, Tempus), leading the Knowledge Management Group at the Tempus Public Foundation for nearly six years. As Managing Director of Learnitect Design Ltd., he focuses on designing learning environments that support knowledge transfer, as well as organising online and offline learning, designing community spaces, and managing international projects. He first envisioned the Knowledge Hub podcast in 2022, which finally became a reality in autumn 2023.