-By Leah Cantor

On May 29 and 30, against the backdrop of Boston Harbor, KidsBuild! celebrated the imagination and creativity of young minds. In its seventh year, the program presented by the Boston Society of Architects in conjunction with the Institute for Contemporary Art was designed to teach children about architecture and urban planning in a hands-on, interactive way.  A large-scale model called "ICA City" based on South Boston's Fan Pier city grid took over the ICA's stage floor with fictitious lots delineating city blocks into different zone
types.
 
With restrictions limited only to lot size and building height, the sky was the limit. Working in small groups as well as some independently, children embarked on their design adventure with a first stop at the "Building Department" where they chose a building type/site from a plan of the city and were issued a building permit.   
 
Volunteer "Building Inspectors" helped these ambitious designers find their site on the city grid where they reviewed basic design concepts including planning, codes and construction. The first ideas began to unfold as sketches, design notes, and site measurements filled each child's workbook.
 
Armed with their ideas, kids then paid a visit to the Construction Yard where they selected their materials and began the building process. With 100 percent of the materials donated by local firms, a visit to the Materials Area was every child's dream. Boxes overflowed with endless samples and memos in every shape and color from tile to wall covering to carpet.
 
With materials in hand, it was time to start building. Below the colorful wall of mirrored glass windows, an installation by Ugo Rondinone, was a chaos of creative energy at work. Tubs of tape, scissors and glue were scattered among the long tables as construction began.  Multicolored glass tiles formed a swimming pool deck, carpet samples posed as hospital beds, cardboard tubes reinvented themselves as foot bridges between buildings as towering structures emerged.
 
With finished buildings in hand, the kids then journeyed back to the site floor where they carefully and proudly placed their models on their respective sites. Here, "building inspectors" inspected each project and invited the young designers into a dialog about their projects and how they met basic design concepts. With wonderfully descriptive narratives of their designs, the "designers" then received an inspector's signature and a Certificate of Occupancy, completing the building process. Each child came away with the beginnings of his/her own portfolio which included a workbook complete with all necessary stamps, concept sketches and a photograph of their design.   
 
Over the two day period, the cityscape grew from a leveled state to a completely occupied city neighborhood which provided a unique opportunity to capture the event with time lapse photography. For viewing this as well as additional photos, please go to committees.architects.org/kidsbuild/.