A day camp sponsored in part by the University of Georgia is introducing middle school students to architecture, landscape architecture, and planning [...]

Over the course of a week, the children take field trips, practice using design tools and techniques, and discuss issues related to planning and design. In addition, they have the opportunity to meet and interview design professionals, including some CED faculty. — American Planning Association

The Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE) of The American Institute of Architects honored five educational and cultural projects for the CAE Educational Facility Design Excellence Award on Aug. 7.

The Educational Facility Design Awards jury selected the projects they perceived as exemplary learning spaces that further the client's educational programs and goals as well as exhibiting outstanding architectural design. — bustler.net

In Georgia, one school with an eye-popping price tag opened its doors today. $147 million buys North Atlanta High School a 600-seat theater, a food-court-style cafeteria with a smoothie bar and more than 50 acres of athletic fields.

But here's another ... less impressive... number: North Atlanta has a graduation rate of only 60 percent.

School leaders hope this investment will help turn things around. Is that too much to ask of a building? — marketplace.org

Helsinki-based VERSTAS Architects has shared with us the beautiful Saunalahti Comprehensive School project in Espoo, Finland's second largest city. The school building, completed last fall, was the result of an open architecture competition in 2007 which VERSTAS Architects won. — bustler.net

... how does using a different physical space have an impact on learning? Bosch argued that changing the environment helps teachers and students to break free from old habits: "One of the things you can do is create an environment where you cannot function the same way as you used to. What happens when you go out of the school into a theatre, you have to improvise. When you improvise, you start learning and developing." — guardian.co.uk

The students were tapped in determining whether to invest in one or two clothes dryers. Would they use drying racks to eliminate the second dryer? Would they give up hair dryers? Would they wear sweaters in winter to permit an energy-saving thermostat setting of 67 degrees?

“We don’t tell students that certain behaviors are unacceptable,” said Joseph Scanio, one of the center’s two live-in teachers. “We discuss things. We make it easy to be intentional about the choices you make.” — bloomberg.com

In 2012, ​filmmaker Leon Gerskovic chronicled the journey of 16 design/buildLAB students as they conceived and realized the Masonic Amphitheatre. The project, a charitable undertaking, consisted of the complete redevelopment of a post-industrial brownfield into a public park and performance space. Reality Check is their inspirational story. — design/buildLAB

University performance: Architecture in our sortable table . — guardian.co.uk

"Anything we can do to expedite the speed with which people can get licensed is a good thing," says David Cronrath, AIA, Dean of the University of Maryland's School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. "What Renee [Cheng, Professor and Head of the University of Minnesota's School of Architecture,] has done is establish a roadmap which a lot of people can follow. And, I think, of course they will." — University of Minnesota

The winners of the 2012 RIBA President’s Medals were announced this week at a special ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. Dating back to 1836, the prestigious RIBA President's Medals reward talent and excellence in the study of architecture. — bustler.net

More than 25 high school students from across New Orleans, most of whom had never met an architect, recently took part in the inaugural Project Pipeline Architecture and Design Camp — a four-day, intensive workshop intended to introduce the process of design to a community with historically limited access to the design profession. — bustler.net

SEEDocs launches with the story of the restoration and revitalization of the Owe’neh Bupingeh pueblo in Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico. — SEEDocs

To do things differently, it helps to connect with new people and contexts. Universities and design schools seldom make that easy... This handout contains the most interesting ones we’ve found so far. It includes [with their permission] the findings of a scoping study for Schumacher College in England. No quality judgment is implied by inclusion in (or omission from) this list. — doorsofperception.com

All human artifacts and activities — not just our objects and architecture, but also our organizations and operations, policies and procedures, systems and infrastructures — have been designed, and too many of the most critical have been badly done by professionals and politicians who didn’t know the first thing about design. While we cannot blame them for what they didn’t know or couldn’t see, the stakes have gotten too high for us to continue in this way. — Places Journal

It is possible to say without too much exaggeration that we now inhabit a version of the future William Gibson first described 25 years ago.... an accumulation of smaller changes, the consequences of which are subtle and all-pervasive as technology has increasingly lodged in unanticipated aspects of our lives. As Gibson has observed, the actual future is often more nuanced and unexpected than the imagined future. — Places Journal