Our Client

For all it has to offer, the city of Chicago may be defined by its architecture above all else. The Chicago Architecture Foundation is committed to promoting architecture and design in order to educate and increase public interest. They do this everyday through various adult and youth education activities, tours, exhibitions, and lectures.

What They Needed

To help modernize high school drafting classrooms through a multi-disciplinary, architecture-based curriculum, CAF developed The Architecture Handbook in 2007 in collaboration with the Chicago Public Schools. Building on the national success of that textbook, CAF has created a second volume, The Architecture Handbook 2, to exist exclusively as an online learning experience both for classroom and individual use. The Architecture Handbook 2 will teach the architectural design process through a combination of architectural themes, case studies, and hands-on projects.

How We Helped

Palantir created branding elements for the site design that were loosely based on the design from The Architecture Handbook, this is apparent especially in the areas of typography and color palette. A distinct goal for the interface of the site was to make the deeply layered textbook and design project content easy to use and access, particularly for a high school audience while remaining accessible and easy-to-use for their teachers. This was accomplished by crafting large, bold navigational buttons, such as the ‘supertabs’ for the Think (textbook) and Design (workbook) sections of the site. We also used tones of vibrant color to help the user locate themselves within the large site. These user-friendly design features visually articulate parallels between the Think and Design sides of the site.

The design team at Palantir collaborated closely with CAF to explore how Web technology could enhance the nature of their curriculum. To keep the quantity of information manageable and relevant, we designed Drupal-managed interactive slide shows that display the information in thematic bite-sized chunks without compromising the didactic impact. We are using taxonomy to draw connections between the theoretical, practical, and inspirational content. This creates opportunities for students to explore the content as broadly and deeply as their curiosity takes them.

The Drupal content management platform provides the CAF site with the interactive functionality to engage and inform both students and teachers. A student lessons area will allow visitors to browse online lessons about the major themes in architecture and learn how those themes apply in practice to case study schools. The design forum will provide a workspace for students where they can post projects they are working on and receive feedback from peers and architects alike, as well as comment on projects posted by others. A teacher forum will give teachers the ability to share ideas and best practices about classroom challenges. There will also be an area for teacher interdisciplinary materials, which will include video tutorials, lesson plan ideas, classroom activities, and casestudy-inspired science and math problems.

The Upshot

The Architecture Handbook 2 is a site that conveys authoritative and resourceful content using a visual voice that inspires and supports dialog between students, educators, and architects about the design process.