A Building Like a Lobster
There is a new hotel in Macao, an autonomous region on the south coast of China across from Hong Kong. This Morpheus Hotel is lobster-like because it has a kind of exoskeleton wrapped around the towers. The basic shape of the towers was predetermined because the hotel is built on the foundation of an abandoned …
Town Map Coloring
Draw a local map on canvas and join together to color it while talking about the built environment of your town. SUPPLIES! Large piece of canvas (any size will do but you want many people to color simultaneously, so make it at least 6′ x 6′ (although bigger is definitely more fun!) Purchase at an art …
Kohoku House: Concrete and Light
A Japanese architecture firm designed a small house for a small family in a small town in Japan. The house looks like a kind of plant, but instead of green and soft, it is concrete grey and hard. It almost looks like a fortress, but there are a few windows and fortunately a few skylights …
Chicago Architecture Biennial is Coming Back!!
Last time was 2017, and since Biennial’s come around every two years, there will be another one in Chicago this fall. And exciting news for us is that archKIDecture will be involved! We will be doing some programs with young kids at the Chicago Cultural Center so you can have fun and your parents/grownups/adults too! …
Reading all aROUND
For those of us who like books, who like to read, who like to look at pictures in books, well we have a place for you to go round. It is in Glasgow Scotland, and it is a round “Reading Room” (a kind of library space) that makes you feel good just to sit in. …
Wrapping up a Building
Artist Christo is going to wrap another huge structure in fabric. This time it will be the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. And it will take A LOT of fabric. And A LOT of rope. Specifically, it will take 270,000 square feet of a polypropylene fabric and 22,965 feet of red rope. It will be …
1000 Phone Face
In the Galaxy phone headquarter store in Shibuya, Japan, Samsung used 1000 phones to create a lighted facade, or building face. Tokyujin Yoshioka is the designer of the facade and the idea was to program each phone so that it would blink and light up and create a kind of light show. The phones extend …
Got Milk? Or a Milk Crate Shelter?
Wow. Someone sure must have liked drinking milk. A LOT of MILK! A few years ago, a group of LAU (Lebanese American University) students used ordinary milk crates and zip ties to build an emergency shelter. These milk cartons are the same ones you can find anywhere in the world. Why milk crates? Milk crates …
A Minty Tiny House Project
Sometimes you might want to build a project about space that is small and simple. In this case, if you can get your hands on a bunch of mint tins or candy tins, you can create some sweet little spaces. For instructions on making a teeny tiny doll house out of a metal mint tin, …
Who Moved My House?
A few years ago, in Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago, lived a house that was designed by John Van Bergen, a colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright. The house in in the design of the Prairie School, a style that you can identify by an emphasis on horizontal lines, large overhanging eaves on the roof and …
Point me to This Building
Artist Steve Messam enjoys making sculptures that live in buildings. Often, he takes structures that are falling down or in ruins and adds inflatable pieces to them to create quirky and unusual art/architecture works. This “Pointed House” is located in Mellerstain House, Gordon, Berwickshire. Scotland He describes this work with the pointed roof here: ” …
Color Geometry on Buildings
Sometimes you see a mural or painting on a building that makes the difference between a drab or uninteresting structure and something worth remembering. Spanish artist, Okuda San Miguel, uses geometric shapes and bright colors to create huge murals to bring buildings to life. Okuda is from Spain and has painted murals around the world, …
Notre Dame in Paris: Sadness in Flames and Hope in Spire Competition
The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris suffered terrible damage in a fire this week. The entire roof, much of the interior, and the elegant spire were all lost. With over 13 million visitors per year, so many people around the world have memories of the building and were touched by the images of the flames …
Newhouse Competition for High Schoolers!
The Chicago Architecture Center invites Chicago area high school students to participate in the 2019 Newhouse Architecture + Design Competition. The deadline for registration is Thursday, April 25th! Areas to apply to include graphic design, photography, model making, advanced architecture and fine arts. This is a well-known competition. It is an excellent opportunity to learn …
We Love Louis!
Louis Sullivan (1856 – 1924) was a genius. There is so much to say about him as an influential American architect, a father of the skyscraper and as an inspiration to the Prairie School of architecture – which included most notably, Frank Lloyd Wright. In fact, Wright started his career in the office of Louis Sullivan. Sullivan …
Draw an Arch with a Piece of String
With some found-around-the-house tools and some patience, you can draw perfect archs – just like an architect! This architect, Reza Asgaripour, has some fantastic videos and instagram posts that show you how to draw. See how to draw an arch here on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BXxSCNTBbXF/?taken-by=architectdrw On this YouTube video, you can use string and pushpins to …
People in Plastic Houses Should Not Throw Stones…
We just happened upon these portable Geodesic Dome structures on a plaza today, in Evanston Illinois. It looks like Springtime inside of the plastic domes, with summer furniture and a simple electric heater. All you need to do is to enter through the Velcro door and bask in the sun and warmth inside, while being …
A 3D Printed Bridge – WOW!
In Shanghai China, inventive designers and engineers created a bridge that was built by a 3D printer. Usually we think of 3D printers using plastic material as it makes layer upon layer to create the 3 dimensional object. In this case, CONCRETE was used to create the layers. A robotic arm moved back and forth …
Rolling Bridges Don’t Fall Down
Rather than design a single rigid element that fractures to allow river traffic through, Heatherwick Studio’s Rolling Bridge opens by slowly and smoothly curling until it transforms from a conventional pedestrian platform into a circular sculpture which sits on the bank of the canal. This bridge was part of a huge development at Paddington Basin …
Tulips and Pickles in London
For a number of years, one of the most interesting skyscrapers in London was the all-glass structure designed by Foster + Partners, which is lovingly called “The Gherkin” (which in American English, is simply translated as “The Pickle”. The same architecture firm now is proposing a new skyscraper that is being referred to as “The …
About Perspective Mural is BIG
We installed a large mural in Evanston Illinois for the summer. It is a giant blackboard with some white geometric shapes on it and it is begging for YOU to come and draw on it. We want you to learn all ABOUT PERSPECTIVE. Two point perspective to be exact! How do you learn how to …
Summer Architecture Workshops – ArchforKids in NY
Lucky kids who live in New Rochelle will be able to attend a workshop series about architecture called ArchforKids Programming will take place on July 16, 17, 19, and 20, 2018 and also on August 20, 21, 23 and 24, from 2:00 pm – 4:30 pm for kids aged 7-12 years old. Two four-day “Draw It, …
Building up to the Pritzker Prize
In the world of architecture, the Pritzker Prize is a huge award. Architect and designer, Andrea Stinga, built these models and made this video. What we really like about the video is how the basic form of each structure is visible. This way we can see what makes these winners. Each one is so unique …
2018 Hip Hop Architecture Camp in St. Louis
Summer is back! And so is Hip Hop Architecture camp. St. Louis County Library’s Natural Bridge Branch is hosting this summer camp from July 30 – August 3. Camp is free and lunch is included. Kids have to be 11-14 years old and they will have a great time learning about the built environment and meeting …
Making a Model of the Big Apple
An artist, Zeyd Menk, made a scaled model of Manhattan (New York City) out of recycled computer parts and hot glue. The artist used Google Maps as a reference to see the location of buildings. Google also helped to determine the height and the shape of the buildings. The Empire State Building even lights up …
Grow this Building Material!
Hemp is a natural plant and a natural building material that has been around since ancient times. It is a strong plant with deep roots – so deep that it can’t be grown like a household plant in a pot inside of your living room. Instead, farmers are planting hemp all over the globe – …
Kids Learn about Architecture in Richmond, VA
Wanted to let you know that there is an exciting architecture for kids event planned at The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design for kids to learn a lot about various fields related to architecture and the built environment. FEBRUARY 3, 2018 in Richmond Virginia. Frankly, we had never heard of this museum before at …
People Who Live in Paper Houses…
We still have not been able to get to Washington DC in a really long time and so we have never had the privilege of visiting the National Building Museum. (Hope to go in 2018!!) Anyway, one of the current exhibits is a series of eighty – YES 80!! – paper models of architecture from …
Brave Women of Architecture!
Women have not always been welcome in the field of architecture. It is a sad truth. A new web project, Pioneering Women in Architecture, is a well-designed site that focuses on a handful of women who were brave and strong-willed enough to push through the boundaries created to keep women and others out of positions …
A Sort of an Architect…
Sometimes someone trains as an architect and does not design any structures at all. Sometimes he or she thinks about the built environment and writes about it and never builds anything. Big and small ideas can come from people trained in architecture. Some of the ideas are about building up and some are about unbuilding. …
Pink Houses in Sweden
Artist Olek wanted to create a work (or two) that would recognize the difficulty of so many displaced people in the world without housing. So she designed two projects in Kerava Sweden and another in Avesta Sweden Olek worked with a team of women to crochet large pink squares and then the team assembled the …
What Lies Underneath the City?
Author Kate Ascher shows us what runs our cities – literally, how the water travels through the pipes, the electricity through wires and cables, and streets and all of the other elements that make a city run…these are all called infrastructure. INFRASTRUCTURE is a LARGE WORD. The Wikipedia definition is “Infrastructure is the fundamental facilities and …
Gingerbread Fallingwater House
So you want to build a gingerbread house? Why not impress your neighbors and friends, (or at least people who love architecture) and build a model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House? This one was built by some folks who wrote some directions on how to build it youerself. They said it took TEN hours …
Holiday Gift Idea of Coloring Architecture Coloring Book!
We created a coloring book for kids and adults alike! Coloring Architecture, Interiors is our big fat coloring book with simple enough interior scenes that you won’t need glasses to complete it! Tear out pages and color them with patterns or solids, with bright colors or subdued hues. However you want to see each room …
A Century of I.M.Pei
Ready set go…blow out those birthday candles, Mr. Pei! This famous architect turned 100years old earlier this year. He was born in 1917 – and has been living as a famous architect for many of those years. Let’s look back at where the world was at in 1917… World War I is taking place and …
Mini Homes in the Future
What do you think houses will look like in the future? Will you live in a pod? In an inflatable structure? In a box with furry sides and windows? Who knows!! Some architects are playing with ideas about small housing units for future living. Collaborations between designers have created “micro-dwellings” that include a variety of …