Whether it's re-designing Jack's beanstalk for greater structural stability or relating questions of entrance and egress to the Epic of Gilgamesch, children's view of architecture is rich with symbolism, fancy and fun. Some 100 public elementary school children from Los Angeles, CA, displayed their architectural projects at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in a special exhibition last year. The exhibition was the culmination of a six-week program to study architecture developed by students at SCI-Arc.

According to Ric Abramson, a practicing architect and teacher at SCI-Arc, the program began three years ago when the architecture school's diversity committee wanted to initiate a course that would affect the community. Abramson was given carte blanche to develop a program that would fit the architectural curriculum.

Having worked with children before in a joint program between the Los Angeles chapter of the AIA and the University of California at Los Angeles, Abramson decided to once again focus on children.

"Unfortunately, children don't get enough art instruction in the public schools," says Abramson. "And there's never any architecture taught. Yet architecture deals with the three-dimensional world, which is the world they live in. This program helps them understand the built environment and it introduces them to a visual thought process that can be very expressive and creative."

Student Teachers
The one semester course begins with Abramson's students spending six weeks getting ready to teach. They study subjects such as the theoretical approach to teaching, lesson planning for architecture and course development.

After this crash course in education, the students go out in teams of two or three to teach in a public elementary school. Three schools are selected each semester. So far, some 14 schools in the Los Angeles area have been included in the program. Nearly 400 fourth grade students of all income, racial and ethnic backgrounds have been introduced to architecture.

Two hours a week, for six weeks, the host teachers relinquish their classrooms to the student teachers. The teachers arrive with a box full of materials "hunted down" at building supply, art and lighting stores. (With each student team receiving only $125 to cover materials, photo documentation and the final exhibition, the children aren't the only ones getting a lesson in creativity.)

Each session teaches a thematic lesson of architectural concepts and principles, including scale, structure, light, circulation and landscape among others. The lesson begins with a few quick exercises leading up to the day's main project. For example, when studying scale, the children measure their bodies to see how scale is evident on them. Then, the discussion may turn to the scale requirements of two different houses, one built for the world's tallest person and the other built for the world's shortest person.

To understand circulation, the students were asked to build labyrinths. The lesson began with a discussion of the Minotaur, the creature in Greek mythology with the body of a man and the head of a bull who was confined in a labyrinth and eventually killed by Theseus.

"We always try to keep the lesson in the realm of fantasy," says Abramson. "This way the children aren't constrained by any preconceived ideas of how something should be built. One class was asked to build a house for a creature with wheels. Another time the creature was able to walk through walls. With fantasy, children can break the boundaries of what they know is normal architecture."

For an interdisciplinary approach to teaching, the student teachers sometimes attempt to tie architecture to other subjects the children are studying in school. For example, one class was learning about entomology as their science focus. So, when studying passage as part of their architectural program, they were instructed to build bridges based on the body structure of different insects. Thus, an eight-legged insect inspired a bridge with eight supports.

Unlocking Creativity
According to the children's primary teachers, some of the children who had trouble solving problems involving analytical or formulative thinking, were thriving on the kind of thinking involved in solving architectural problems. Often, children would express themselves in other artistic ways as a result of inspiration from their architectural studies.

"One student was very upset during the labyrinth project," says Abramson. "She couldn't get hers built exactly the way she wanted it. The next class, she came up to the student teachers and apologized for not doing a good job and then handed them the most amazing story she had written about a princess who was locked in a labyrinth. Therefore, you can see that although our focus is on built strategies, the program gives children a chance to learn so much more."

As for the student teachers, they learn a lot, as well. Many discover a new aspiration to teach. Others finally clarify what architecture means to them. And virtually all are motivated by the chance to get involved in their community in a form they are familiar with.

At the end of the semester, the children's projects are exhibited at SCI-Arc, and they and their parents are invited to visit the school and see their works on display.

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