Architecture School: Day 3 & 4

We did do another day of Architecture School last week, but we also had errands and a doctor's appointment, so it was shorter than usual. We did more today out of the book, but didn't work on the art project, so I'm combining them into one post.



Day 3: continuing along a similar line as Day 2, we did the extra lesson of Level K, Lesson 3 in Architecture: It's Elementary! which was to talk about elements of a park. We used the vocabulary sheet for park features like we did with the Architectural Scavenger Hunt, but we only drove to one park, which did not have all elements. (The boys were annoyed that they didn't get to "finish" it, but I told them that all parks are different and eventually they accepted that.) They enjoyed the park time, and I liked being able to count it as school (besides P.E.)

Then we went home and painted windows and doors on our city on a rock on a cylinder foundation. (Hmmmm, we need a better name for it than that.) Final reveal picture will be on the next AS blog post.

Day 4: Today we worked from lesson 4. We started with a discussion about one of the main architectural principles: "Design is accomplished by composing the physical characteristics of size, shape, texture, proportion, scale, mass and color." (I mentioned they don't use the Oxford comma, right? Diving me a tiny bit bonkers.) Then we tried to come up with examples and applying it to what they already know or have observed. Here are just a few of the things we talked about for each part of the concept:

Size: we talked about the need of large industrial buildings, and how skyscrapers can put more space in a small footprint area.

Shape: we talked about their great-grandmother, who can not do stairs well. Would she do better in a one-story house, or a two story? When we were on our Architectural tour, we talked about different roof shapes, and how some are better where there is lots of snow, but were there is little snow they have different roof shapes.

Texture: we talked about the carpet vs. the laminate in our downstairs living areas. We felt them, compared them, then talked about how one is easier to clean, but the other is nice to play on.

Proportion: we talked about what it would be like if we had three bedrooms, but only one bathroom for our family of five people. What would it be like if we had three bathrooms, but only one bedroom? (We focused on what is nice to have, not necessarily that some people have to deal with less than ideal.)

Scale: Principal Daddy is about 6 ft (rounding down.) The average house is about 10 feet tall per story. What would it be like for Daddy if the house was only 6 ft high? What would it feel like if the ceiling was 20 ft high?

(Skipped mass)  

Color: we talked about how different colors make different people feel different ways. We talked about painting walls different colors, and if they could chose a paint color for their room, what color would they choose, and how would it make them feel? (The answer for both was an energizing yellow.)

Builder Boy's Town

After all that, we talked about what a community needs and why. They then designed their own communities, using the book's example as a guide, and their vocabulary list as a check list. Builder Boy was very into it and planned out a whole town with some additional ideas of his own.

Early Bird got bogged down in more detail, and completed only a grocery store and a school before he was done with the activity.

Later today we are going to be learning about the (hoping I researched this right!) correct way to hold a hammer while hitting a nail and why. That's going to be a separate blog post.

Early Bird's Town

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