HMFH Architects and students from Cambridge's Baldwin School build a sustainable Box City in partnership with LBD:MA

Eighteen volunteers from HMFH Architects led a design education program at the Baldwin School. Conducted in partnership with Learning By Design in Massachusetts (LBD:MA), a statewide architecture and design education program for K-12 schools, the program brings architectural design alive for young minds. HMFH and LBD:MA volunteers engaged the entire 375-student body in a series of guided building exercises to create an actual sustainable city in three-dimensional form, known as Box City. Polly Carpenter, AIA, program director for LBD:MA said, "In the case of the Baldwin School, students also explored sustainable design principles at several scales, from the macro level of transportation, creating a walkable city and the implementation of solar power, to the micro scale of composting bins in individual homes." After intensive introductory sessions that group- ed several grade levels together, teachers and volunteers worked in smaller sessions where kids spent several hours constructing elements of their sustainable city. *