A little spark. The small, bright flash before something catches. What a fire begins as, before it becomes a fire.
Every child is born with a spark — that instinctive reach toward the paintbrush, the press of hands into clay, the tower built and knocked over and built again. It is not something we teach. It is something we are all born with.
The studio is named for that spark. Not because we light it. Because we make room for it.
Chispita. A little spark. Enough to start something.
"There are one hundred languages of children — a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking. The child has a hundred languages and a hundred hundred more."
Chispita Studio was born from a simple thought: a space where children create freely, think deeply, and feel at home in their own curiosity — it didn't exist here. The kind of place I always wanted for my daughters. The kind of place I was fortunate to experience in different forms growing up. So we're building it.
A Reggio Emilia-inspired creative studio opening in West Orange County, Florida in 2027. An atelier, a free community library, and a coffee bar for the adults who bring them. Sessions from birth through twelve. Open to members and the community. Reserve your visit.
beginning to twelve.
Seven Atelier sessions serve ages 12 months through twelve. Tiny Seeds story time lives in the Library — free, always. Each one is designed around where a child is developmentally — not just how old they are.
The session names carry two languages because a word said with warmth — in any language — belongs to everyone who hears it.
Children already spend their days in structured environments. Chispita Studio is the other thing — the place where a child can follow a thought wherever it goes, get completely lost in a material, and walk out having had the best hour of their week. The learning is real. But it's not why we built this. We built it because every child deserves a place that is simply, completely theirs.
In plain language.
“Children are not vessels to be filled. They are sparks to be ignited.”
The Reggio Emilia approach is a philosophy of early childhood education that began in northern Italy after World War II. At its center is one idea: every child is already curious, already capable, already a thinker.
It is not a curriculum. There are no worksheets, no right answers, no scripted lessons. It is a set of principles that shape how the space is designed, how guides work, and how children spend their time.
Children who have a place like this — a place that is genuinely, completely theirs — carry something with them. A confidence in their own curiosity. A willingness to try. A sense that making something is worth doing for its own sake.
Children are curious, intelligent beings who learn through inquiry and making. We design for that — not around it.
The physical space is designed to provoke curiosity. Open shelves invite exploration. A gallery wall says: your work matters. The tree says: you are welcome.
A child who spent forty-five minutes pressing their hands into sand, watching it shift and settle, pressing again — was fully, completely somewhere. Where they went is everything. What they made is how they remember it.
Children's thinking is documented and displayed. It shows them their ideas are valued — and invites families into the process.
The making and discovering happen in relationship — between children, between children and guides, and between the studio and the families who are part of it. Families are not drop-off customers. They are partners in the process. Their presence — in the Atelier with younger children, in the Coffee Zone with a clear sightline, in the Library alongside their child — is not a policy. It is the model.
Rivera-Latorre
Mother of two daughters under two. I spent four years designing buildings for other people’s visions. Chispita Studio is the first space I’ve designed for my own children — and every child like them.
I looked at this city — one of the fastest growing in Florida, full of families, beautiful in its mix of where everyone is from — and I saw what wasn't here. No Reggio Emilia studio. No space where a child could create and explore freely and just go.
"I have two daughters. And I want them to grow up in a city that made room for them."
Spatial strategy · brand identity · latorre.design
Opening Q4 2027
We're not open yet — but you can be first. No payment required until we open.
Reserve My Spot ✦ chispitastudio.com