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ARCHITECTURE
The following curriculum materials are designed to be used with the Achievement Television program Advocacy and Citizenship. VHS tapes of the program can be ordered through the Gift Shop of the Academy of Achievement web site.
Program Overview
Architecture is a research-based curriculum that focuses architecture and its impact on art and culture. Students view video interview segments featuring two successful architects, Maya Lin and Phillip Johnson. These interviews serve as a springboard for students' own research. A list of online resources is provided to support student research.
Viewing/Facilitation Strategies
- Introduce the Architecture topic and video segments. Ask students to share examples of their current knowledge, experiences, and questions related to architecture.
- View the video segments as a class, in small groups, or individually.
- Facilitate student selection of one of the research projects listed below which fits their interests and grade level.
Student Academic Standards
- Students understand how architecture as well as other art forms contributes to the development and transmission of culture.
- Students understand the ways in which human systems develop in response to conditions in the physical environment including architectural styles of buildings.
- Students understand constraints must be considered when designing a solution to a problem including materials, space, scientific laws, engineering principles, and construction techniques..
- Students understand that the design process relies on different strategies: creative brainstorming, evaluating the feasibility of various solutions, and troubleshooting the selected design.
- Students know how to gather and use information for research purposes.
- Students understand how to make multimedia presentations using text, images, and sound.
Designing Memorials and Monuments: Maya Lin
Maya Lin's fame as an architect began with her design for the Vietnam Memorial. She has gone on to design other memorials and monuments including the Civil Rights Memorial. Her goal has been to design with honesty, individual loss, legacy, and tribute in mind. Research May Lin's life and architectural achievements. Use your information to develop a web site design that profiles this successful architect. Provide other students with information about her training, architectural goals, main works, and the design ideas that are important to her.
Eternal Reminders
Architect Phillip Johnson says that "eternal things, like poetry or architecture go on." Native people in North America have left us eternal reminders of their culture with the remains of their settlements. Architectural evidence of their unique view of design and the use of shelter to preserve their cultures exists today. Research the history of the design and construction of the Pueblos and Anasazi settlements in the American southwest. Consider how the ancient architects and builders took into account their environment, culture, and spiritual beliefs. Use your information to develop a multimedia presentation that describes the architectural heritage of North America's ancient peoples in the southwest.
Student Academic Standards
- Students understand how architecture as well as other art forms contributes to the development and transmission of culture.
- Students understand the ways in which human systems develop in response to conditions in the physical environment including architectural styles of buildings.
- Students understand that the design process relies on different strategies: creative brainstorming, evaluating the feasibility of various solutions, and troubleshooting the selected design.
- Students know how to gather and use information for research purposes.
- Students understand how to make multimedia presentations using text, images, and sound.
Architectural Process: Comparing Famous Architects
Architects approach their work in ways that are unique to their own vision and ideas about artistic process. Maya Lin talks about how she sees her work as "an idea without a shape." She spends two or three months trying to research everything about the site and the goal of the project. She describes architecture as being "surrounded by problem solving" and "like a puzzle." Other famous architects have different ways of describing the process they use to conceptualize and design a structure. Conduct research about Maya Lin as well as architects, I.M. Pei, Paolo Soleri, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Gather information about how they approach a new project. How do they move from an idea without a shape into a final plan? Use your information to develop an interactive report comparing and contrasting their approaches and outcomes.
Great Buildings: Near and Far
If you travel to France you might be lucky enough to see the architectural wonder of the Chartres Cathedral in person. Phillip Johnson doesn't see how "anybody can go into the nave of the Chartres Cathedral and not burst into tears." Around the world there are historic and modern architectural wonders that inspire people with their beauty and power. But every area has its own "great buildings" and architectural heritage. In your area you can find unique buildings such as churches, museums, skyscrapers, schools, and even houses. There are architects who have set their design stamp in your city, town, or neighborhood. Research architecture achievements found in your local area. Select a structure built a long time ago and another that was recently built. Develop an online magazine article describing both projects and the architects who designed them. Why are both important in the architectural legacy of your area? Why are they inspiring to you?
Student Academic Standards
- Students understand how architecture as well as other art forms contributes to the development and transmission of culture.
- Students understand how elements of materials, technologies, artistic processes are used in similar and distinctive ways in various art forms.
- Students understand the need to evaluate a designed solution and its consequences based on the needs or criteria the solution was designed to meet.
- Students understand that there is no such thing as a perfect design, trade-offs of one criterion for another must occur to find an optimized solution.
- Students understand how to make multimedia presentations using text, images, and sound.
- Students know how to gather and use information for research purposes.
Architecture and Nature
Architects must, on some level, design structures in the context of the location or environment in which they will built. But some architects, like Maya Lin, take the awareness and presence of nature more directly into account as they create their designs. She says that one of the key goals in her work is to have people "feel connected to the landscape." She feels that her Japanese heritage, which is deeply connected to nature, is the reason each of her structures explores the relationship to nature and could be described as a "threshold to nature." Conduct research about the role of nature and landscape in architectural design. Identify three architects who you believe directly tie their designs and structures to nature. Use your information to develop a multimedia presentation that presents these architects, their works, and their philosophy of nature and structure.
Function and Design: Solutions by Leading Architects
The work of some contemporary architects is startling to our eyes. They seem to defy the laws of gravity and introduce innovative astounding ways to combine form and function. Frank Gehry, Paolo Soleri and others are examples of such pioneering architects. In previous historic periods other architects made new design statements and expanded people's views about beauty, function, and form. Research the history of American architecture. Identify five innovators who introduced new solutions when solving architectural problems in design, form, and function. Use your information to develop a visual annotated timeline of these groundbreaking architects and their works.
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