Walter Thomas Bailey and Charles Sumner Duke: Early Black Architect and Engineer
Most of the architects in America have been white men. Because almost every person who graduated from architecture school was a white man and most of the architecture firms were run and owned by white men. Still, there were a few exceptions in the US, starting back in the early 1900’s with Charles Sumner Duke …
Architecture Fashion – Wear a Building?
Virgil Abloh trained as an architect and now he is a designer for a famous fashion house, Louis Vuitton. As a fashion designer, his job is to design a whole series – also called a collection – of clothes for every season. This means that he and his team come up with themes and ideas …
Read This and Think Like an Architect
Written by architect Randy Deutsch, Think Like an Architect offers tools to solve problems in the same way that an architect solves problems. For example, if you want to think about different ways to design a room, how might you come up with new ideas? The illustrator, Bruce Bondy, along with author Deutsch, make some …
What is an OGEE?
There are so many definitions, let’s investigate: “Oh Gee!” Words that you might blurt out if you see a dog driving a car. OG: The Opera Ghost in the musical Phantom of the Opera OG: Original Gangster which you might call someone who is “old-school” OGEE: The excellent Scrabble word that is part of architecture …
Desks and Chairs for Kids!
There is an organization called Tiny WPA based in Philadelphia. It was named after the Works Progress Administration – which is an interesting US government project from back in 1935. Anyway, Tiny WPA is a youth-led community design improvement program. We want to give them KUDOS for doing great work! Tiny WPA has been working …
Got Some Time? Build a Playing Card House
Design and build something really great with some playing cards that you have at home. Perhaps your family has some old decks that are missing one card – crummy cards that no one ever plays card games with any more. Those are perfect for this project. Or perhaps someone you know works at a casino …
Funny Fotos of Buildings
Did you ever walk down the street and just start laughing at something? Maybe a dog doing a funny trick, a person carrying a bench on her head, a chicken crossing the road? We saw this building being fed. Really, we did.The building is a local middle school in Evanston, Illinois – Nichols Middle School. …
Get outta that Chair! Visit a Special Building (virtually)
Stuck at home? Feeling a bit stir crazy? Well, the City of Chicago has a solution. The Chicago Cultural Center is available for virtual tours. Go on one of these tours and you will be surprised and filled with wonder. This building in downtown Chicago was slated for demoliton. Shocking, we know! Find the videos …
Aren’t Buildings Supposed to Last Forever?
If only they would! There are some structures – like the Egyptian pyramids, which are very, very old. Some say that it took over 85 years to build the Giza Pyramids between 2589 and 2504 BC. Yes, these are ancient structures, indeed. However, most buildings do not last for ANYWHERE NEAR THAT. In 2015, a …
Straws and Pipe Cleaner Structures!
If you have some straws and some pipe cleaners you can make some interesting structures. In fact you can make them and unmake them. Start with three straw and three pipe cleaners. Attach them to make a triangle. Once you make a triangle, you can make more connected triangles. I always cut the pipe cleaners …
Architecture Stuff To Do at Home
Are you bored? Do you need to find some fun stuff to do? You can get some ideas from The Center for Architecture in New York. The folks there have organized a bunch of activities for kids to do at home. They have a storefront in New York City, but since stores aren’t open now, …
Walking in Barcelona
The Spanish city, Barcelona, is famous it’s architecture. The city is the home of the work of Antonio Gaudi, the man who we always like to quote as saying. “I hope that in the future all buildings will be soft and furry.” The man never met a corner he liked, so his buildings were filled …
Mushroom Rooms
Mushrooms. We usually think of them as food. Ya know, we have sliced mushrooms on pizza, we sometimes make rice with veggies, including mushrooms. Apparently, mushrooms can also be used to make ROOMS. Mushrooms, also called mycelium, grow everywhere and have lots of great qualities, including acting like glue. So, if mycelium is mixed with …
Try Drawing at Home
You know when you just cannot think of anything to draw? That feeling of having white paper just staring up at you, begging for something and you are absolutely empty of ideas? You can always open your eyes and draw your space. That could be the room where you sleep, the place you eat, or …
Architecture Projects for Kids from Foster + Partners
Foster + Partners is one of the world famous architecture firms that designs buildings all over the globe. One of the very well-known buildings by Foster + Partners is located in London. This building has the strange name of “The Gherkin”, which translated into American English is “The Pickle.” We like it very much because …
Freddy Froebel’s Fun
Ok, his name was Friedrich Froebel, not Freddy, but perhaps he was Freddy to his friends. He did seem to like to make fun for children. He is credited for having invented the first Kindergarten and for designing many toys for children based on geometric shapes, natural materials and fine craftmanship. His toys were called …
DRAW IT! archKIDecture workshop
this workshop offers an opportunity to draw something over and over but with a twist. we think you will have fun taking an ordinary object and drawing it over and over again…. workshop details: for folks ages 7-102 | approximately 12 minutes | create a drawing project based on an object in your house | …
Build a Hexagon Shelf
Since everyone is at home a lot – it might be time to make something new for your room, or for another space in your house. And all you need is a whole bunch of popsicle sticks and a glue gun. I am not sure that the shelf could hold a set of encyclopedias or …
An On-Line Architectural Drawing Class for Kids
Architectural drawing is very specific. What we mean is that architectural drawing involves lines, curves, tones, shapes, and measurements. Of course there are sketches that are more general or willy nilly, and there are beautiful architectural drawings that are painterly. For the most part, architects are drawing to communicate to others about the look and …
Disney Castle is Pretend – No Surprise
If you have ever been to Disneyland in Anaheim California, you must have seen and entered the Sleeping Beauty Castle – you know the HUGE stone castle with the brightly colored flags waving from the parapet, (the extended short wall around the top of the castle that goes up and down and up and down …
Adorable Adobe
Do you know what adobe is? It is a building material that is as old as the hills (not sure what the means) except that adobe has been around for many centuries and it is made of earth (like the hills). It starts out as earth. Earth that is not too wet and yet not …
Draw IT! :: 09.29.20
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A Tower Named Camp
We love this Danish tower so much. And we hope to be able to visit it someday and climb, climb, climb up to the top and look out in the forest. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go there, to Haslev, Denmark, and visit a 900 meter boardwalk connected to a 45 meter tall observation …
Cover Up!
Ghanaian artist, Ibrahim Mahama covers up buildings in a most interesting way. The artist takes sacks made of jute, also called hessian sacks, that are commonplace in his native country, Ghana. Artist Mahama has collected a zillion of the sacks and then proceeded to sew them together and completely cover up buildings with the material. …
Girih Tiles and Strapwork
How the heck do people make those intricate designs on mosques and other Persian or Islamic structures? They are fascinating and gorgeous and so very complex. AHA! We found out how it is done and it is based on a surprisingly small number of shapes and lines. The shapes are called Girih tiles and the …
A Short Booklet about How to Become an Architect
If you want to briefly understand a definition of the word architecture or architect, and if you want to learn about going to architecture graduate school and working at an architecture firm, then this PDF is just perfect for you. Created by an architecture firm, HKS, for the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust in England, it …
Recovered History
We just heard some great news. All of the records of a prominent American architect, Paul Williams, have just been discovered after it was thought they were destroyed. Mr. Williams designed over 3000 buildings, including the famous Los Angeles airport building, and the homes of many famous actors over a fifty year career. He won …
Something to Build While at Home
Walking down the street, minding my own business, and what did I see? This incredible homemade home made on the front lawn of this home. I don’t know much about it but I would guess that it was made of found materials and painted in a most elegant and extravagant fashion! Who would not want …
Forts from Sweden
While you are stuck at home, perhaps you want to create a new space. You can build some kind of fort. All you need is a sheet or blanket and some chairs or tables and your BIG ideas. If you have some string lights, perhaps some clips or clothespins, the possibilities are endless. The huge …
TP and Towel Roll Town
During this time when we are all stuck inside, it’s time to be creative with the items we have in the house and stuff we might recycle…..like the cardboard rolls from toilet paper and paper towels. Useless items can become a secret city! Take the roll, wrap it with paper. Cut out windows and glue …
Know When to Fold A House
It is fascinating how many modular houses are available now. These are houses that are manufactured in a factory and then shipped to the location where they are assembled and built. Some of these houses are made out of shipping containers or other metal boxes that attach to each other. Some others that we just …
SELECT – A New DesignGame
SELECT is a fun design game where an artist or architect can click and select different pieces to make a drawing! Check it out. Put your cursor over any box and drag down to see dozens of different lines, shapes, letters, or numbers. Select any one per box. You can try to make something you’ve …
Hey Look! It’s a SHARK in Your Roof!
Back in 1986, a shark crashed into the roof of a house in England. And it is STILL there! It didn’t actually jump out of the ocean and into a house in Oxford England. (After all, Oxford is about 100 miles from the ocean.) Nope, this 400 pound fiberglass fish was created by an artist …
What? This House Cleans Itself!
From the collection of wacky and brilliant ideas in the world, we present the Self Cleaning House! Yes, an inventor and artist, named Frances Gabe, came up with this idea because she wanted to be free from the mundane task of cleaning her home. She had this idea and she spent years building out her …
ZIPPY Architecture
This building might come as a surprise to you. You can ZIP it up. Literally zip it with a VERY LARGE zipper! It appears to be able to be zipped, however it is a visual play for us to think about architecture and the built environment differently and with some fun. Artist Alex Chinneck zips …