Date | 23.04.2025

Research Exhibition | Honours Program Final Exhibition

Honour Student-Presenter | Sari Naito

Supervisor | Laura Cipriani

Content | Final exhibition with all students of the Honours Program, which was the theoretical course I requested to conduct in 2025 during the Comenius program. The honor student Sari Naito presented her research on ‘Space and Nature in Waldorf Education.’

Presentation | ‘Space and Nature in Waldorf Education: Exploring Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical philosophies in relation to architectural, outdoor and bodily space.’

Abstract | Waldorf education may be widely recognised for its pastel-coloured classrooms, students’ watercolour paintings, and poetic approaches to learning, but Rudolf Steiner’s theories on anthroposophy trace back these pedagogical characteristics to the origin of human existence – the nature around us. He believed that everything in nature is holistic and imaginative and that nothing should be considered an isolated element. This idea of a comprehensive natural system follows through in his pedagogical teachings, where all the senses, feelings, and spatial understandings are interconnected in a carefully designed curriculum.
Giving the understanding of nature in Waldorf pedagogy an element of three-dimensionality, this paper will explore how these holistic pedagogical concerns are translated into spatial design through an analysis of the three different types: architectural, outdoor, and bodily space. Classrooms, corridors, and other rooms are designed to enhance a child’s spiritual connection to the outer world while simultaneously helping them focus inwards in a practical academic setting. Outdoor spaces are treated as an extension of the classroom, calling for a careful balance between the designed and the natural. These ideas of the (in)separation between the inside and the outside are bound up with the bodily awareness that children develop over time, derived from Steiner’s view of the natural ecosystem and human subordination to nature. The anthroposophical belief that the human body is a container for the inner soul is mirrored in the school architecture, which envelops a space for children to develop their will and sense of identity independently. It challenges the boundary between creating a physically enclosed space and connecting to the outside world, grounded in an understanding of the human spirit as an extension of the natural world.