Exploring Architecture with Kids: The Neighborhoods of Washington, DC

Exploring Architecture with Kids is a newprogram designed to teach kids about the neighborhoods where they live. After the great success of its first-ever walking tours in Dupont Circle and Georgetown last fall, Anacostia in the spring, and Capitol Hill in September, the Washington Architectural Foundation (WAF) is planning its fifth in an ongoing series of walking tours of DC neighborhoods for kids.

On our first tour, in Georgetown, the morning’s adventure began with a brief conversation about basic architectural vocabulary—the styles, shapes, and materials that form the buildings around us. Next, architect Mary Katherine Lanzillotta, AIA, who has been teaching kids about architecture for 15 years, led a walking tour of the neighborhood. Buildings on the tour included the Old Stone House, Customs House, a Federal Style Row House, a Richardsonian Style Rowhouse, a Romanesque Style Rowhouse, Farmers’ and Mechanic Bank, and Canal Square. Back at Cunningham + Quill, kids had a snack and an exciting hands-on activity: designing and building their own model rowhouses with supplied materials. Each participant received an activities booklet on the Georgetown neighborhood.

Future tours are planned to explore many other DC neighborhoods. These tours are a natural extension of Architecture in the Schools (AIS), a WAF program in its 15th year, which places volunteer architects in public-school classrooms to teach kids about the built environment. WAF is a 501-c-3 nonprofit organization funded primarily through grants and donations.

Exploring Architecture with Kids is made possible through a generous grant from the American Architectural Foundation.