This architecture firm designs structures that can be built with local materials, without a lot of large equipment or teams of workers, so that people with very little can build structures that are useful and beautiful. In places like Thailand, Uganda and Indonesia, the architecture firm of TYIN tegnestue, from Norway, designs interesting structures to […]
Category: learn about architecture
Too Cool Schools
At the Center for Architecture in New York City, you can visit an exhibit about the architecture of schools – of the fantastic schools of Finland. They are fabulous because the Finnish school system churns out staggering students (with great educations in any case.) Maybe the schools in the US could learn a little from […]
Dr. Spock …What’s Up?
This mosaic can be seen at a Jewish synagogue in Chicago. The building is in great disrepair and the mosaic is one of the only parts of the interior that is still beautiful. When you walk in the building, the paint is peeling, the plaster is torn off, pigeons have pooped all over the benches […]
No People Pictures, Please
The Taj Mahal, in Agra is a building that has always made us yearn to visit India. People who have seen it say it is so gorgeous, so white, so stunning, that it stops you in your tracks. A friend visited there and brought us this neat little sculpture of it, made of sandstone. The […]
Thinking Hard about A Design Competition for KIDS
(Thanks to Kathy Mandell for this Brain Drawing.) Coming out of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, there is a BRAINY design competition for kids in Grades 1 – 8. The Competition is called “Cycles: From Fields to Cities” which is a bit of a confusing name – we thought it had something to do […]
Artists Consider Architecture
A single column of Legos is one artist’s interpretation of architecture. Can you imagine that? Once single column of Lego blocks – granted, it IS pretty tall but doesn’t that just make you want to say, “Really?” The Lego tower is part of a new art exhibit in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art […]
Watch a Movie on a Raft
An architecture firm called Buro Ole Scheeren, based in China and Hong Kong, is designing some really neat stuff. One of their projects is a series of rafts with bean bag chairs that face towards a raft that holds a movie projection screen. So you are floating while watching the movie – in the middle […]
A Contest in Atlanta
For kids and adults alike, you can try out this “Name the architecture spot in Atlanta” contest. A group of photos of details of buildings that people who really look around will recognize, you can fill in the blanks and maybe win the contest! We think it is a cool idea to get people to […]
Be a Tourist in Your Own City
A number of cities across the world have been organizing free public events, called OpenHouse.The events allow behind-the-scenes access to over 100’s of great sites for one select weekend in a given city. You have the opportunity to see private houses, public structures and secret spaces that are otherwise closed to the public. And it […]
SeeSaw House in Surrey England
This house is not really a seesaw, it is firmly planted in the earth. Well, at least half of it is.When a structure hangs out without anything supporting it, it is called a cantilever. This house in Surrey England is an example of CANTILEVER EXTREME! And the story is that you can rent it and […]