Childrens books for future designers and planners

I have two kids, ages almost 6 and 3, and while they love reading books, I enjoy reading their books as much if not more than they do.  I love the nostalgia and silliness of Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl and the clever stories and terms that Mo Willems churns. The way my kids respond to books has shown me the power within their pages. One book can spark a new interest that lasts days, months – even years. One book can lead to the insistence that we read tens more on the same topic.

So naturally, I try to select books on topics that are also interesting to me (after all, I’m equally invested in reading these). This prompted an unofficial research project on children’s books about the built environment. With the exception of the immense stock of books about construction, trucks, trains and planes, there are relatively few stories about the professions and interests of the designers and planners or about the shape and functions of cities, buildings, communities, neighborhoods and parks themselves.

However disappointed I was by the brevity of my list, books like Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty and The Little House by Virginia Burton have been inducted into our nightly favorites. (You can find my assuredly incomplete list of children’s books on landscape, architecture, planning and otherwise urban-related topics at the end of this post.)

What is curious about this short list is that designers and planners love to publish books – but often these books are more effective as marketing tools for their services than as revenue generators from their royalties. Michael Crosbie, FAIA, who is currently the associate dean, architecture department chair, and associate professor at the University of Hartford and also edits Faith & Form magazine, has written more than 20 books on architecture. Five of these are specifically for children. Michael wrote a series of children’s book published by Wiley in 1993: Architecture Counts, Architecture Colors, Architecture Shapes, and Architecture Animals; in 2000 he wrote Arches to Zigzags which was published by Abrams. “The Wiley books have sold more than 120,000 copies, and continue to sell well nearly 20 years after publication, so they have by far been the most popular books I've ever written,” Michael says.

Watching my kids get excited by their books reminds me that I “discovered” the design and planning professions well after I established my career. Perhaps if I had read The Curious Garden by Peter Brown when I was five years old, I may have studied landscape architecture instead. From loosely polling my landscape, architecture, planner, urban designer friends, I’ve noticed that most of them chose their profession because they had a parent, uncle, aunt or family friend that was in a related profession. If this is how young people are still being recruited into studying design and planning, it’s no wonder why these fields suffer from a lack of diversity.

This is a missed opportunity! A children’s book that can be found in a public library can transcend races, genders, economic classes and cultures. What’s the literary legacy you’d prefer, a silly picture book about a personal learning experience that inspired a little girl to pursue your vocation or the coffee table monograph that you’ll give to your clients?

Children’s Books Relating to Design or Planning of the Built Environment

• Roberto the Insect Architect by Nina Laden
• The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown
• ARCHES TO ZIGZAGS: An Architecture A B C, by Michael J. Crosbie
• Architecture Shapes, by Michael Crosbie
• Architecture Counts, by Michael Crosbie
• Architecture Colors, by Michael Crosbie
• Architecture Animals, by Michael Crosbie
• Not  a Box, by Antoinette Portis
• Gargoyles, Girders & Glass Houses by Bo Zaunders
• Snail Trail: In Search of a Modern Masterpiece By Jo Saxton
• Two Bad Ants, by Chris Allsburg
• Island Boy, by Barbara Cooney
• Rome Antics, by David Macaulay
• Round Buildings, Square Buildings, and Buildings That Wiggle Like a Fish by Philip M. Isaacson
• Pop-up London, by Jennie Maizels
• Iggy Peck, Architect, by Andrea Beaty
• How a House Is Built, by Gail Gibbons
• The Three Little Pigs, by Steven Guarnaccia
• An Ants Day Off, by Nina Laden
• The Architecture Pop Up Book, by Anton Radevsky
• Draw Me a House: A Book of Colouring in, Ideas and Architectural Inspiration by Thibaud Herem
• The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton
• The Cable Car and the Dragon, by Herb Caen
• Frank O. Gehry: Outside In, by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan (10 years and up)
• Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (added by Carol Hagen)
• Le Corbusier in His Own Words: An Introduction for Children edited by Antoine Vigne
• Need a House, Call Ms. Mouse by George Mendoza
• The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
• 13 Buildings Children Should Know by Annette Roeder
• Cathedral by David Macaulay
• Building Big by David Macaulay
• Motel of Mysteries by David Macaulay
• The Unbuilding by David Macaulay
• Great Building Stories of the Past by Peter Kent
• The Picture History of Great Buildings by Gillian Clements
• Building a House by Byron Barton
• How A House is Built by Gail Gibbons
• Castles: A 3-Dimensional Exploration by Gillian Osband and Robert Andrew
• What It Feels Like To Be A Building by Forrest Wilson
• Architects Make Zigzags: Looking at Architecture from A to Z by Diane Maddex
• Zekmet, the Stone Carver: A Tale of Ancient Egypt by Mary Stolz
• Charlie’s House by Reviva Schermbrucker
• The House that Bob Built by Robert A.M. Stern
• Book of Cities by Piero Ventura
• Beauty and the Beast by Charles Moore
• Nature By Design by Bruce Brooks
• Discover America’s Famous Architects by Patricia Browne Glenn
• Draw 50 Buildings and Other Structures by Lee J. Ames
• Fank Lloyd Wright for Kids: His Life and Ideas by Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen
• Houses and Homes by Ann Morris
• Housebuilding for Children by Les Walker
• Math in the Real World of Architecture by Shirley Cook
• The Architecture Pack: A Unique, Three-Dimensional Tour of Architecture over the Centuries : What Architects Do, How They Do It  by Ron Van Der Meer
• Under Every Roof: A Kid's Style and Field Guide to the Architecture of American Houses by Patricia Brown Glenn
• The Little Skyscraper by Scott Santoro
• The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury
• The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett
• Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett
• The Danger Box by Blue Balliett
• Start Exploring Architecture: A Fact-Filled Coloring Book by Peter Dobrin

(Did I leave one of your favorites off? Please comment with title and author and I’ll add it.)

PARK(ing) Day 2012 Brings Public Space, People Together

PARK(ing) Day was celebrated around the nation Friday, with people going beyond creating temporary parks by bringing communities together in new ways. Launched in 2005, PARK(ing) Day (http://parkingday.org/) was started in San Francisco when an art studio dedicated to environmental projects set up a park in a metered space. Since then, the event has spread, with temporary parks popping up in 162 cities and 35 countries over the past seven years. The third Saturday in September is designated as the day for creating temporary community-oriented public space or green space.

This year, in the U.S., there were 586 parklets. The top five states with the highest parks were California (195 parks), Pennsylvania (37 parks), Maryland (34 parks), Kentucky (31 parks) and New York (29 parks).

Throughout the world, advocates for parks and public space created fun and innovative parklets. In Cincinnati, Ohio, artists replaced cars with stages and galleries. People engaged in a series of shows illustrating the benefits of serendipitous art in public places. Dancers from the Cincinnati Ballet dancers practiced at the barre. Pones, Inc., an innovative artists collaborative,  basked at a beach dance party with sand, swimsuits and music, Circus Mojo featured tricks in their center ring – and passersby tried to hula or toss a ring.

In Amsterdam, there were miniature parks to make a green corridor between two city parks, demonstrating the potential for improvement of the urban infrastructure. The Parks and Recreation in Dallas, Texas, rolled out a sod soccer field onto a Main Street parking spot.

"Lighter than Air” – an installation of colorful tall-tube balloons, inflatable balls, and a “flying bicycle” was put up in San Francisco on Valencia and 17th. Hosted by INTERSTICE Architects and PUBLIC, the organizations said riding a bicycle is the closest many people will feel to flying so wanted a whimsical bicycle-themed space where everyone could sit, eat, and play.

SWA Group put up parklets where they had offices in the U.S. In Houston, people played cards. In San Francisco, there was a bocce ball court and a grassland installation.

What did you do for PARK (ing) Day? Comment with your link to photos and we’ll post them on Facebook or our Pinterest page.

Check out our PARK(ing) Day photos on Pinterest.

More photos of PARK (ing) Day

SF Curbed

DC Streets Blog

Inhabitat

What Will Pop-up Tomorrow?

The pop-up urbanism trend that started with parklets in San Francisco is spreading across the country. These temporary parks in place of parking spots have shown up in Oakland, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and even smaller cities like Asheville, NC. The concept has spread beyond temporary park space and is now testing retail concepts in gentrifying areas.

The idea for parklets emerged in 2005 from PARK(ing) Day in San Francisco, an annual event that will happen on Sept. 21 this year, when residents reclaimed a parking space for the day by setting up chairs, tables and plants to create a temporary park. Last year, PARK (ing) Day occurred in 162 cities and 35 countries. The true “parklet” movement was kicked off in March 2010 when San Francisco approved the building of a parklet in front of Café Mojo on Divisadero Street. Another parklet milestone is the Powell Street Promenade, the largest parklet in San Francisco that was installed in 2011. This area provides a space to eat, talk and relax, providing people a reprieve from the bustle of the corridor, which is one of the busiest in the nation and frequented by more than 100,000 people on an average weekend.

Earlier this month, I dropped by one of San Francisco’s latest urban intervention “SqFt”. Spanning several blocks between 5th and 7th on Market Street, the organizers programmed activities throughout the day that gave retail renters in the area a chance to try something new and it gave virtual companies the opportunity to interact with customers in person. The day began with coffee for bike commuters, a yummy tamale vendor provide fuel for drumming lessons, etsy artist sales and yoga lessons.

With a surge of interest in urbanism across the country, communities are rethinking public space. The advantage of pop-ups is that they offer fast and inexpensive tools for making a big impact. Designers and planners are heavily involved in the big and long term moves of a city and each project becomes the latest calling card for the firms involved. These mini moves are also opportunities to distinguish a firm’s design, creativity and philosophies. The phenomenon of pop-up urbanism, also known as tactical urbanism, has not only gained popularity, but has created a way to test new concepts before embarking on substantial political and financial commitments with the intention of improving the quality of human life in sustainable way.

What started as parklets has evolved to temporary storefronts like [storefront] Olson Kundig’s experimental work place for the firm's community collaborations in Seattle and David Baker’s San Francisco StoreFrontLab, a year-long exploration of storefronts as places of community, creativity and local industry. [storefront] has performed as a record store, a mushroom farm, Hardware [store] and is currently an exhibition focused on the individuals working in the Puget Sound region to eradicate poverty and homelessness, Skid Road.

Olson Kundig Architects in Seattle uses the [storefront] below their studio for community collaborative exhibitions

The upcoming pop-up at StoreFrontLab is the Post-Car Travel Agency, which opens on Aug. 17 for a week of talks, one-on-one travel services and discussions on living car-free. Before that, it was a craft shop selling artisan goods such as skateboards, clothing and sandcastle molds.

Tactical urbanism seems to be the current motif in the architecture world. The theme of this year’s U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale is Spontaneous Interventions: design actions for the common good. The biennale will focus on compelling and actionable strategies, ranging from urban farms to guerilla bike lanes, temporary architecture to poster campaigns, urban navigation apps to crowdsourced city planning.

Conger Moss Guillard’s (CMG) Parkmobiles, which are robust, movable containers with lush gardens that fit in a street parking space, was accepted into this year’s prestigious Venice Biennale. While everyone is embracing the gush of interest in pop-up urbanism, there are some concerns. How can tactical urbanism work in architecture and the formal planning process? Mike Lydon, principal at Brooklyn’s Street Plans Collaborative and author of Tactical Urbanism, Volume 2, is among the tactical urbanists contributing to the Venice Biennale. He says that the planning process won’t be replaced by pop-up-urbanism.

“Following up on comprehensive planning efforts, the neighborhood-wide or city-wide planning process can use tactical urbanism to take some of the most popular ideas and really do things quickly rather than have them wait on the shelf for the million-dollar funding stream. Tactical urbanism is a tool for the more formal planning process,” Lydon said in an interview with the Architect’s Newspaper.

What do you think is next in the pop-up evolution?

Check out our Tactical Urbanism Board on Pinterest!

Weekly Roundup for the Week of July 2

Transformation of vacant Wal-Mart. Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle converted an abandoned Wal-Mart in McAllen, Texas, into a functional and contemporary library. The firm, which was recently named winner of the International Interior Design Association’s 2012 Library Interior Design Competition, installed a strip of laser-cut wood into the ceiling plane to visually divide the library, placing the computer lab on the left and meeting rooms on the right. The designers also used several hanging graphic elements to help break up the space visually.

Via Inhabitat

Architecture and Affordable Care Act. HOK healthcare experts share their thoughts on how the Supreme Court’s ruling on ACA will affect healthcare architecture and opportunities to bring value to clients.

“When we think of health care architecture, we are looking at a tool in the larger social context of healthcare delivery. When delivery of care is inefficient and expensive, with insufficiently good outcomes, or doesn’t cover all citizens, we are looking at problems that we as architects can help solve.” -- Chuck Siconolfi, a senior principal and director of healthcare innovations, planning and design at HOK

Via HOK Life

Race to be green. Mayor Vincent Grey of Washingon, D.C., has initiated an ambitious new plancalled SustainableDC, that seeks to make the nation’s capital No.1 in sustainability in a generation.

Seven bills are being considered by the City Council, which include boosting energy efficiency, spurring renewable energy production, promoting electrical vehicles, protecting rivers, promoting urban agriculture and reducing toxic exposure among children.

Via The Dirt

Permanent play street in Queens. Jackson Heights residents and City Council Member Daniel Dromm won a hard-fought battle to close 78th Street to traffic for two summer months. Now, 78th Street is being turned over to the community and is on track to receive a bottom-up redesign that will make the new space more than just asphalt.

The Department of Transportation has two designs underway. One is to enable the street closure to function year-round while letting parents at the adjacent Garden School drive and drop off their children on 78th. The second is a longer-term vision of how the street can be remade as a space that works for people, integrated with Travers Park on one side and the Garden School park on the other.

Via Streets Blog

Weekly Roundup for Week of April 9

I spent two days this week immersed in ideas with progressive firms and professionals who are investing in research + development for their work and testing how new technology can shift their practice. I'm still buzzing with new thoughts and eager to build on the connections I made. Stay tuned next week for what I took away from KA Connect. Architecture and Design Film Festival. The second annual Architecture and Design Film Festival brings 30-plus features, short films and events to the Music Box Theatre in Chicago.

ADFF 2012 includes Pruitt-Igoe Myth, a documentary about Pruitt-Igoe, a St. Louis housing project that became a symbol of modernism’s and public housing’s perceived failures. In the Eames documentary, architect and painter James Franco narrates Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey’s look at Charles and Ray Eames, the king and queen of midcentury modernism.

Eating in Nature. Bamboo Wing restaurant in Vietnam exemplifies the merits of steel-free design.

World Architecture News highlights a slideshow of images that showcase a breath-taking restaurant and event venue by Vo Trong Nghia Co., Ltd at Flamingo Dai Lai Resort in Vinh Phuc province, Vietnam. Constructed entirely using bamboo as a structural and finishing material, the rustic interior is the perfect backdrop for romantic dinners, celebratory drinks and events such as weddings or official ceremonies.

Interview with Frank Gehry.  The 83-year-old architect talks to the Wall Street Journal about his 12-story Opus Hong Kong, the most expensive piece of residential real estate ever built in the city.

“It’s an honor to be called to do a building, especially on a site like this, on the Peak in Hong Kong. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I accepted it that way, and I wanted it to be special. I didn’t want it to be a sore thumb, because you can see it from Central. So I didn’t paint it red.” –Frank Gehry

related: Bloomberg Businessweek

Design Competition. Designs by finalists in competitions aimed at re-imaging three sections of the National Mall are on display and open for public comment. Which is your favorite?

According to Architectural Record, the 12 schemes are available for viewing April 9-15 at the Smithsonian Castle, the National Museum of American History. The concepts seek to restore and improve Constitution Gardens at the Mall’s west end; the Washington Monument Grounds at Sylvan Theater, near the center; and Union Square at the east end, near the Capitol. Some aspects call for the construction and/or renovation of structures.