Adventures in Architecture for Kids

Adventures in Architecture for Kids Synopsis

Design Genius Jr.: Adventures in Architecture for Kids introduces kids to the design challenges faced by architects today, including choosing materials, designing for diverse users, and considering the environment.

Offering a world of possibilities for learning math, engineering, history, social studies, planning, geography, art, and design, this rich educational resource includes hands-on projects that allow kids to experiment, design, build, succeed, fail, and try again.

Children will draw upon many fields of knowledge and sharpen a variety of skills, including observation and communication, as they:

• Complete building challenges with corrugated cardboard and geodesic forms.
• Look at how designers have solved impossible problems of gravity and space with creations such as suspension bridges, the Loretto helix staircase, and Brunelleschi's dome.
• Explore how materials can be used in interesting ways-how paper can go from flimsy to structural, for instance.
• Participate in family game playing: client and design team-finding creative ways to meet a client's wish list. Use games to test strength, balance, and structure.
• Engage in pure imaginative archi-doodling.
• Explain the why. Why did styles evolve as they did? What technology was available when?