This July, the Virginia Center for Architecture was host to the Math Science Innovation Center’s Summer Regional Governor’s School program From the Ground Up. The program, aimed at middle school students, was a two-week exploration of the professions of architecture, planning, interior design and landscape architecture. Through hands-on activities, lectures, and visits to firms and sites — including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Carlton Abbott’s striking sculptural installation at historic Pole Green — students learned about the language of architecture, investigated green design, and planned their own community from the ground up.
The program culminated with presentations by the students to an inspired audience of onlookers. The students, broken into groups responsible for the design of five different zones of their fictional community, presented models explaining their various design choices — including a roof-top community garden on the recreation center to the green features of the police department.
This marks the fifth year the Center has played host to the program.
