his study discusses the role of the visual environment in the overall well-being, learning and development of children under the age of three years. Seven Finnish day-care centres were studied through the concepts of visual quality and affordance.

There were many well-designed features in the studied day-care centres. Yet, many of the centres could be defined as dull or boring as only a few environments provided excitement through diverse materials, meaningful display, or variable outdoor spaces. An unexpected result was that long-lasting creative play seemed underrated in the visual environments, although it has been considered as a core element in Finnish ECEC throughout its history. An interesting result was that documentation can reveal a number of affordances, especially concerning the social and associational aspects of the human-environment interaction.

The study provides new perspectives about the meaning of the visual environment to be reflected upon in day-care centres, especially by discussing the significance of the environment's associational aspects.