'Body Building: Architecture and the Body' family workshops

On 30 June 2012 the Royal Institute of British Architects was the venue for 'Body Building: Architecture and the Body', a series of family workshops. A team of RIBA staff lead by Education Curator Elizabeth Grant engaged with children and their families to explore architecture in new ways.

Each workshop began with the participants using their bodies (and the adults present) to recreate architectural features; bodies became columns, arms as lintels and through collaboration they created colonnades, arches and domes. An active discussion took place, using RIBA collection material, about construction and every building's battle against gravity. Following this was a drawing session involving the use of the outline of the body to create a skyline. The video shows how these young designers used their imaginations to give their body-inspired structures unique features.