Author: Catherine Teegarden

As another school year draws to a close, so, too, have our 2013-14 Learning by Design:NY  in-school residencies.  The start of summer is the perfect time to reflect on the past year and highlight some of the achievements of the Learning By Design:NY programs.
Continue reading “Looking Back on Another Successful Year for Learning by Design: NY”

Second-graders at PS 199 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side had an opportunity to teach their parents about the city’s history at the culminating celebration of their Learning By Design:NY program on New York City’s residential architecture. More than 130 students proudly presented their models of residential buildings, documenting 400 years of city history as told through changes in our residential architecture. Students toured admiring parents and siblings through this architectural timeline, which began with Native American longhouses and ended with today’s high-rise apartments. Other key stops along the way included Dutch farm houses, British colonial houses, country estates, row houses, tenement apartments, suburban-style houses that define many neighborhoods in the city’s outer boroughs, and turn-of-the-century apartment houses. Students pointed out how changes in building materials, size, and architectural details showed which buildings came later in the city’s history. Continue reading “Young New Yorkers Learn About City History Through its Architecture”

Learning By Design:NY, the Center for Architecture Foundation’s K – 12 architecture education program has been active in city schools since 1996, pairing architects and design educators with classroom teachers to integrate the study of architecture and design into the school curriculum. For the past three years, home-schooled students have also been able to participate in this hands-on design program using the Center as their classroom. Continue reading “Home School at the Center”

What do the Renaissance villas, tree houses, and mosques on display at the Center for Architecture have in common? They were all designed and built by students in the Center for Architecture Foundation’s school and vacation programs, and are gathered together in the “Building Connections” exhibition, which opened on 11.14.13. This annual exhibition showcases K – 12th-grade student design work from the CFA Foundation’s Learning By Design:NY school programs and Center-based vacation studios. The exhibition’s designers, Jill Ayers and Rachel Einsidler of Design360, created colorful graphic icons that highlight the range of topics covered in these programs, illustrated by the projects in the exhibition. An accompanying activity guide provides short explanations and drawing activities to help younger visitors engage with the exhibition themes. Continue reading “Building Connections Exhibition Opens at the Center”

For those who missed this year’s Association of Architecture Organizations’ annual conference in Boston, 09.26.13–09.28.13, here is an armchair tour of a few of the highlights. The theme of the conference, “Making and Measuring Impact,” focused on the importance of telling a clear, coherent, and engaging story about what we do and why we do it. “We” were a loose grouping of staff and volunteers from architecture centers throughout the U.S. and abroad, as well as students, architecture professors, designers, staff from art museums, tour companies, and other organizations interested in making architecture part of the public discourse. Continue reading “Report from the Field: Association of Architectural Organizations 2013 Conference”

The Center for Architecture’s youth and family programs took an engineering turn as both our FamilyDay@theCenter program on 07.27.13and week-long Summer@theCenter camp explored bridge structure and design. Eighteen families, with kids ranging in age from 3-13, attended the two-hour Saturday Family Day workshop where they learned how different types of bridges support weight and span a distance. Images of bridges around the world illustrated each bridge type, then young participants were called up to test large structural models of beam, truss, arch, and suspension bridges. Kids were able to feel and better understand the forces at work as they stood in for the towers, anchorages, and piers of different bridges. Continue reading “Bridge Bonanza at the Center for Architecture”

Over the course of four Saturdays in June, 11 adults took part in the Center for Architecture Foundation’s “Sketching the City” workshop. Led by architect and educator Eli King, students were introduced to freehand drawing techniques in a friendly and casual atmosphere using the lively 19th-century architecture of Greenwich Village as the object of their studies. The classes began with introductory lessons on techniques at the Center, then moved outside to a shady spot to sit and sketch. Participants came from an interesting mix of backgrounds: from students to young professionals to retirees, and even included a couple of working architects looking to reconnect with and improve their hand drawing skills. Continue reading “CFAF Launches Architectural Sketching Course”