Architecture and Play: Learning from Children’s Museums includes tours of children's museums to give designers insights into any building intended for children, including child care centers and schools.  Experiences such as this helped Marcy Deeds, a self-proclaimed “museum junkie,” and her husband, Jonathan, of Napa, California, create a plan for a hands-on discovery place for children called Scientopia Discovery Center, according to a recent article in  The Napa Valley Register.

Scientopia’s website states that the center will be “designed to encourage children’s love of science, math, art and music through hands-on exhibits, creative play spaces and fun-filled events.” These experiences are designed specifically for children aged to 12 and will include exhibits, play spaces, and activities that are open to the public.

The Deeds visited many child-centered facilities all over California and in the southwest, and say they are “trying to blend ideas from the children’s museums and the children’s play spaces [they’ve] seen.” They also received input from a survey of local mothers – 300 responses from people who love the concept, and want to know when the center will open.

The Deeds are still searching for a location; Marcy says they would “like to stay in the Napa area” and are “pretty much willing to go anywhere in Napa where we could get the type of use we’d need.”

Until that time, Scientopia is housed in several of temporary settings, including the Oxbow Public Market every other Tuesday night and the Chefs Market on Thursday nights.

The Deeds have set up a booth in the kid’s area of the Chefs Market. Features include a large bin of dry beans that provides a sensory experience, a bubble bin for dipping and blowing bubbles, and pieces of PVC piping that allow kids to build their own structures.

The Deeds have “already sort of partnered with non-profits like NapaLit (a local literacy support resource), Community Resources for Children and Napa Valley Music Associates,” and Roberta Goodin of NapaLit states that she “think[s] Scientopia will be of real benefit to the residents of Napa.”

In addition to the exhibits at the Chefs Market booth, Scientopia plans to offer other exhibits, including magnet tables, where children can learn about magnetic force, the Bernoulli Blower, where kids can watch and learn how a ball floats in a stream of air, the Sniff-o-Rama, a place to use senses to identify scents, and the Catenary Arch, where children build an arch with blocks.