Client Pranjali Upadhyay tilted her head, excited to inspect the model for her tiny house. The architect, Maddy, pointed out a child’s bedroom with a separate playroom and small bookcase for a library. Two walls were painted deep blue, and Upadhyay said, “It reminds me of the night sky! I like that you thought so much about what my daughter needs.” As it turned out, this particular architect had an extremely good understanding of what a child’s room might require, as she is a third-grade student at South Ridge Elementary School.
\r\nMaddy asked Upadhyay questions about how she could change the design to better suit her family, “Do you have a pet?” (No, but we might in the future.) “How old is your daughter?” (Three years old.) “What colors do you like?” (Bright colors like sunshine yellow.) Together, they planned a slightly revised model that added an outdoor play area, storage space, and pops of bright color.
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Third grade teacher Amanda Thornton’s WIN (which stands for “what I need”) group has students from all six third grade classes at South Ridge who focus on building applied math skills. The Tiny House project had students design and build scale models for clients. Each student received a list of client requests for a tiny home, including the total number of square feet. The class used different strategies to calculate the area for each house, room, and furnishing to ensure that everything was to scale. They used those calculations to make blueprints, then translated the blueprints to 3-D paper models. The project was a perfect way for students to bring Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) lessons to life.
\r\nThe class also had the chance to meet with a professional architect, Kyle Rogers with LSW Architects, via Zoom. Thornton said the class enjoyed learning more about how plans became real structures. “He explained a lot about how architects use scale, and the different tools they use when they’re planning a building,” Thornton said. The students applied that information to their models as well, engineering the tiny houses to each client’s needs.
\r\nWhen the models were complete, students met with their “clients”—adult volunteers who came to ask questions and offer input. At their client meetings, the third-grade architects listened carefully to learn what their clients wanted, then came up with creative ways to fit those ideas into the small spaces, like using glass doors to add light to a room or building a loft for additional living space.
\r\nAll of the clients were delighted with their tiny house models and the hard work the students had put into building them. “Their work is really brilliant,” Upadhyay said. “I’m very impressed with the thought that they put into their designs.” She beamed, looking at the paper model. “I’m really excited about my tiny house!”
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