CFAF’s Chinatown In-School Residencies Receive NEA Funding

The Center for Architecture Foundation recently completed eight 10-session Learning By Design:NY (LBD:NY) residency programs with 2nd-graders at two public schools in Chinatown. Funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, these programs introduced students to looking at and learning from their local built environment, building their awareness and interest in their community and its history, and enriching their social studies curricula.

Students at P.S. 1 on Henry Street learned about landmarks in their Lower Manhattan community through observation, discussion, and sketching on neighborhood architecture trips and through design and building projects in the classroom. Student teams selected important buildings from their study to replicate as 3-D models. Working collaboratively to create these models, they developed a concrete understanding of new design vocabulary, architectural features, and neighborhood history.

At P.S. 42 on Hester Street, 2nd-graders also integrated their architecture study into their social studies curriculum about NYC. Bridges played an important part in their study of city landmarks. Students learned about different types of bridges and built their own models to understand their structure first-hand. One class combined their bridge and landmark models into a classroom mini golf course, adding the physics of movement to their project as they created chutes to keep the ball rolling through the classroom installation.

These programs will be continued next year, thanks to funding awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts to support LBD:NY in-school residency programs. CFAF is among 788 not-for-profit national, regional, state, and local organizations to receive NEA Art Works grants totaling $24.81 million. The grants support the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts.

CFAF worked with 18 schools and nearly 3,000 students and teachers in 2011-12 through these long-term school collaborations. Design Educators work with classroom teachers to create custom programs that weave architecture into the larger curriculum, helping students see connections between what they are learning in school and the world outside the classroom. For more information about how to support or introduce a Learning By Design:NY program to a school, please contact the Center for Architecture Foundation at 212-358-6135.

Catherine Teegarden is Director of Education for the Center for Architecture Foundation.