Robert Robinson Taylor is featured on a US Postal Service Stamp but you might not have heard of him. He is one of the earliest African American architects, and the first black man to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1892. Originally from North Carolina, Taylor was the son of a slaveowner […]
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Dwelling on a Cincinnati Architecture Education Project
You can’t really argue with a program that is a free, hands-on, project-based learning experience for schools, educators and students, grades K-12. Cincinnati is one lucky place indeed! The project called Design Lab is an in-classroom program that includes visits by built-environment professionals who visit the classroom one time per month for four months in a row. […]
Thank You for 50 Buildings
Today is day 24 in the “History of Cities in 50 Buildings” series that The Guardian is sharing with the world. A global (literally!) view on structures from Chicago to Mumbai to London and Timbuktu, the stories explain the cities by describing the history of the buildings in 50 cities. These are not your typical stories of […]
Design.Build.Transform.
What a great series of words. Design.Build.Transform. If you design something and build it, you have transformed that space. It could be a lego tower or a real-life skyscraper, a collection of chairs in a room or a new library for your town. You have the power to think about it and make it happen. […]
Architecture Playground for Kids
Besides great jazz music, yummy beignets (donut-like treats) and a great architectural bike tour of the Lower Ninth Ward, there is now a new reason to visit New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA). At 2828 Thalia Street, you will find “the Imagination Playground – an architect-designed kit of life-sized building blocks as well as a wide array […]
Architecture Camps for Kids in Illinois
Two architecture camps are planned for this summer 2015 for kids grades 4-6 and 7-9 as well as high school kids, grades 9-12. at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale Illinois. Far south in the great state of Illinois, (quite far from Chicago – our hometown,) is a state university where an excellent design camp has […]
Bamboochitecture
Depending on where you live, you might have bamboo growing in your backyard or neighborhood. It is a plant that grows incredibly quickly and provides an excellent building material. Elora Hardy started a bamboo construction company in Bali, Indonesia because bamboo “… has the compressive force of concrete and the tensile strength of steel, is […]
Boston Teen Architecture Workshop
Are you a teenager? Do you know a teenager? Have you ever seen a teenager? And, has any of this happened in Boston? If so, there is a Teen Architecture Workshop that will be held in April through the Learning By Design, a non-profit architecture and design organization. It sounds pretty great. You will design […]
How to Move a $10 House
In the town of Evanston, Illinois (just north of Chicago), an architect bought a house for only ten dollars. You heard it right! TEN DOLLARS. And it is a house that was designed by a famous architect, built in the Prairie School period of architecture. (Remember the Prairie School is the period of Frank Lloyd […]
A Grand Hotel on Film
The Grand Budapest Hotel. What a great movie. We love that the whole story revolves around a building, a great structure, that is all derived from the imagination of Wes Anderson, the creator, and director of the film. The hotel is bigger than life in the movie, but in real life it is a model […]