The Third Teacher: How Our Learning Environment Shapes Your Child’s Present and Future
At Hábitat Learning Community, we believe children deserve more than just classrooms—they deserve spaces that speak to them, nurture them, and evolve with them, as well as reflect their learning processes. This belief is rooted in one of the central tenets of the Reggio Emilia philosophy: that the environment is the “third teacher.”
While teachers and peers play vital roles in education, the environment is equally powerful. It doesn’t just house learning—it provokes it. It reflects children’s thoughts and discoveries. It inspires new questions. It invites connection.
Spaces Designed For Children
Our learning spaces aren’t adapted from conventional blueprints—they were imagined from scratch, in collaboration with architects who listened carefully to what children need and how they experience the world. The result is a campus that feels warm, inviting, and alive.
From the moment a child walks into Hábitat, they are surrounded by spaces designed to stimulate the senses and encourage agency. Every color, texture, material, and light source is chosen not just for function, but for meaning. There are no generic hallways—there are piazzas that invite interaction, thoughtfully designed classrooms, ateliers and lush gardens—each offering distinct yet complementary opportunities for exploration, creativity, and connection. Documentation panels line the walls, making learning visible and allowing children to relaunch their thinking in new directions.
Our environments are intentionally multi-sensorial, offering children a symphony of textures, aromas, lightscapes, and acoustic atmospheres that awaken curiosity. And yet, they are never overwhelming. There is balance and harmony. A place for movement, and a place for pause.
Nature as a Teacher
Throughout Hábitat there is a lush, organic garden, home to a wide variety of plant and tree species and, increasingly, to birds, butterflies, and small animals. This garden isn’t a backdrop—it’s a living curriculum.
Children don’t just learn in nature—they learn with nature. They plant, harvest, observe, document. They notice the sounds of the wind and the changes in the light. In doing so, they develop a deep, empathetic connection with the natural world—one that fosters environmental stewardship not as a subject, but as a way of being.
Studies consistently show that children who grow up close to nature are not only healthier and more emotionally balanced, but also more focused, creative, and resilient. Our families notice this every day, in the way their children come home with sparkling eyes, vivid stories, and traces of the day’s discoveries on their clothes and in their hearts.
Beauty and Order Inspire Beautiful Thinking
We believe the aesthetics of a space influence the aesthetics of thought. When children are surrounded by order, beauty, and thoughtful design, their own thinking becomes more organized, purposeful, and creative.
This is why Hábitat’s environments are not accidental—they are carefully composed like a musical score, with light, color, texture, and form working in harmony. Even the smallest details—like the placement of a mirror or the height of a shelf—are chosen with intention.
A Place for Every Child—and Every Part of Every Child
Hábitat offers not just spaces for play and exploration, but also for reflection, solitude, and self-regulation. We believe that a child’s emotional well-being is as important as academic achievement, and our spaces reflect that. Children need cozy nooks to read, wide-open areas to run, materials to manipulate, and room to imagine.
Our campus supports this variety. It is flexible, transformable, and deeply human. The children shape the space as much as the space shapes them.
A Community That Lives Its Values
The learning environment at Hábitat benefits not only our children, but also the adults who inhabit it. Our teachers, parents, and visitors all find inspiration in the campus’s natural rhythms and thoughtful design. The environment encourages everyone to slow down, observe, reflect, and connect.
And because children see adults modeling joy, care, and respect for the space, they too develop a sense of responsibility and appreciation. They begin to see their school not just as a place they attend, but as a community they help build.
More Than a School—A Home for Learning
At Hábitat, we don’t just design for today—we design for the kind of world we want our children to create. A world where beauty matters. Where learning is joyful. Where empathy is foundational. And where every child knows: this is a place where I belong.
We invite you to come walk our campus, feel the sunlight through the windows, feel the warmth of natural materials under your fingertips, and hear the laughter of children learning in harmony with their environment. You’ll see what we mean when we say: at Hábitat, the environment is not just a backdrop—it’s the third teacher, intentionally designed to enrich each child’s experience and foster meaningful learning every day.