Malaguzzi believed the physical environment to be of fundamental importance to the early childhood program; he referred to it as the "third teacher", alongside adults and other students.[19] One of the aims in the design of new spaces - and the redesign of existing ones - is integration of the classroom space with the surrounding environment: the rest of the school, and community the school is a part of. The importance of the environment lies in the belief that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments which support "complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing ideas."[20]