Young Builders Learn Architectural Basics

By Kira Glassman

While many kids spent their summers frolicking at camp, staring at computer screens, or poring over Harry Potter, how many could add "creating an icosahedron" to their list of activities?

		Probably only the 20 or so who attended a recent free workshop given by Archikids, an organization dedicated to teaching architectural principles and appreciation to children ages 9 to 13. (An icosahedron, by the way, is a 20-sided figure.) The workship, held, appropriately, at the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City, will be repeated on Sept. 17, Oct. 15 and Nov. 19. (Call 212-945- 6324 to register.) Seated at two tables in the sleek, mirrored museum, the children were assigned the task of building the figure using only toothpicks and gumdrops. "These are construction gumdrops- you cannot eat them," instructed Yves Roger, who runs the workshop with his wife, Leslie Blum. "We don't eat our buildings." Putting aside their disappointment, the budding builders patiently formed the complex figure, one triangle at a time.
They also constructed a miniature "city" made of paper prisms-model buildings folded into varying shapes. "You look at skyscrapers, and most look like prisms," said Roger, encouraging the students to be aware of the shapes and sizes of urban structures. Roger said kids need to think three dimensionally. "Books are two-dimensional, blackboards are two dimensional. I tell kids, we live in a threedimensional world. We have to understand the three-dimensional factor." Does Roger expect these Archikids to become Archigrownups? "If they become architects, fine," says Roger, who retired from architecture to teach. "But to be urban citizens, they have to have a good appreciation of the city. The more we teach our kids to understand the city, the better our city is going to be." Nine-year-old Xavier Russo, who attends P.S. 234, seemed to simply enjoy construction. "Xavier is good at math and likes to build things out of Legos, so I think this is a natural extension," said his father, Robert. Perhaps Xavier has a future in the profession? "He wants to be a baseball player," his dad said. "But I don't think architecture is a bad fallback."