Hi! I'm Henry and I'm 9 years old. I'm an English cocker spaniel and I have a new book for you ! This time it's all about some of the most amazing buildings in the world - when they were built and why. You will also learn about how they are built and even have a try yourself. Happy reading...
Me & Henry have been to many countries together and had lots of adventures and every place we go there are some amazing things to see. Usually there's a huge skyscraper or a very old temple or building. In this book we wanted to share with you some of our fave places and find out who built them and why. Let's take a journey to the top of the tallest ones and understand some of the oldest ones.
So first off, let's think about the world 'building' - what is a building? Building is one of the most ancient human skills. It is part of how we have survived. Although some other animals build simple structures, e.g. birds, ants and bees, humans have learned to build in a great many different ways to suit different needs and local conditions.
But you need to design a building to build it - and that's done by an architect. The word architect comes from the Greek words 'arkhi' (chief), and 'tekton' which means' means builder, craftsman, or woodworker. Most people think it's a job a person has that draws houses, but actually it's more than that. In a way its like an artist expressing themself through different structures they design. The first real forms of architecture were ancient houses, pyramids, and temples. The first structures were built by the ancient Greeks and Romans - they were made of clay, mud, marble, wood, and stone. They invented columns which helped make stronger taller buildings.
An architect has to go through very special training to get a license to build which is really important if you think about it. We don't want buildings designed by just anyone in case they collapse ! They have to work in great detail and have to be creative and imaginative and usually they have to draw (although nowadays computers help!). There are actually lots of different types of architects - let's look at them :
Residential Architect They are architects who make designs of houses or do remodels on homes. They usually work for just one person or a building company.
Commercial Architect They specialize in working with buildings like schools, shops, offices and hotels
Interior Architect They are in charge of designing interior spaces of a building - like the doors, windows, furnishings and walls
Urban Designer If there is something really big like a whole city needs planning, roads, railways or a new airport, then that's what this person does!
Landscape Architect These architects focus on designing recreational spaces like parks, resorts, walkways and gardens.
Green Design Architect These architects are experts in designing environmentallyfriendly structures that are kind to the planet.
Restoration Architect These are super important when you read this book - they work on repairing and restoring old buildings and structures that are in a bad way so that we can continue to enjoy them forever.
A well designed building can shelter people, or animals, or machinery, or anything. The simplest building is just a roof to keep the space beneath dry, or shady. Adding walls gives more shelter, from the wind or rain. It also gives security.
Let'sthen startsafaris at thewere beginning when 25,000 Back usually- European explorers looking to colonize far years ago cavemen actually all to livehunt in and kill animals. away lands. didn't Many were purely caves. In Africa especially, large animals were hunted and carried around by a small army of local tribespeople. In 1909 the US President Teddy Roosevelt made safaris popular when he went on a huge safari killing 11,400 animals including 512 'big game' which is large animals like- elephants, lions, leopards, buffaloes, hippos, and rhinos, including six white rhinos which were rare even at that time. The safari he did lasted a year and filled the Smithsonian Institue in They wouldAmerica hunt andwith often build shelters made of animal skin, hundreds of African animals. branches and in some cases mammoth bones. They didnt have graph paper or pencils...or architects
So what is one of the very first major structures ever built...? Well, we need to go back 11,000 years... As humans began to move away from hunting to survive and started farming and gathering, a huge structure was built in ancient Turkey. Used for farming and agriculture it was made of limestone and had large T shaped pillars - even to this day you can see carvings in the stone showing animals and how they lived. It's called Gobekli Tepe and is seen as one of the earliest monuments in the world. How cool is that?
The next amazing building that's super famous and you may have heard of is Stonehenge in England. Work started on this super stone circle around 5,000 years ago but it took over 1,000 years to finish but we don't really know why it was built!
Originally Stonehenge was made up of an outer circle of 30 standing stones each weighing as much as four African elephants! If you go to Salisbury in England you can still visit Stonehenge. You'll see many of the enormous stones still standing strong in a circular arrangement.
Experts believe about 200 people are buried on the grounds. So as well as being seen as a place of healing it was a place of funeral ceremonies.
The next big buildings you'll know are the Egyptian pyramids !
There are 138 and they were built about 4600 years ago
The pyramids were built as burial places and monuments to the Pharaohs (Kings). As part of their religion, the Egyptians believed that the Pharaoh needed certain things to survive in the afterlife. Deep inside the pyramid the Pharaoh would be buried with all sorts of items and treasure that he may need to survive in the afterlife. Scientists estimate it took at least 20,000 workers over 23 years to build the Great Pyramid of Giza. Because it took so long to build them, Pharaohs generally started the construction of their pyramids as soon as they became ruler.
How the pyramids were built has been a mystery that archeologists have been trying to solve for many years. It is believed that thousands of slaves were used to cut up the large blocks and then slowly move them up the pyramid on ramps.
About 2800 years ago the biggest structure ever made by humans started to be built: The Great Wall of China. built to protect against invading armies.
You can visit the wall and walk the same steps they built thousands of years ago!
Some parts of the wall were made of mud, straw, and twigs and even sticky rice! . \
It's 13,000 miles long and was eventually finished in 1878. There are 7,000 watchtowers, blockhouses for soldiers, and beacons to send smoke signals. .
Thousands of workers died from giant falling stones, exhaustion, disease, animal attacks, and starvation.
2470 years ago in Athens, Greece the amazing Parthenon was built It has been many things. Originally a temple of the Greek goddess Athena, a church , a mosque, an amazing art gallery and even as a treasury. The most precious commodity to be found inside the building was the colossal statue of Athena, made from melted gold coins!
If you visit Athens today you can still see the ruins - not much has changed -
It was almost destroyed by a fire in 1687 so it's incredible to think it's still standing.
Let's start our exciting journey by going on a Big 5 safari! Big 5 means the most amazing African animals: elephants, buffalo, rhinos, lions and leopards.
Over 1900 years old is the next amazing building - this time in Italy and was built in Ancient Rome in just 8 years. The Colosseum is made up of more than 1 million tonnes of concrete, stone and bricks. It is twice as long as a football field and the largest amphitheater in the world! Originally it was a perfect egg shape with tall walls - but in 1349 an earthquake shook the building and so if you visit now there is a diagonal split down the side. It was built for entertainment, they would play out dramas based on classical mythology and re-enactments of famous wars. In the early years the Colosseum would even be flooded with water to act our pretend sea battles ! Can you imagine sitting in a theatre and looking out to an ocean! How amazing is that?
But also in this huge space they held executions and had gladiator contests where you could come and watch them fight each other or with animals like angry lions. It was like watching a major sporting event and people saw these awful fights as a form of entertainment. Most of the gladiators were slaves who would receive expensive special training. It is where the Roman Emperor, his friends and the people of Rome would come and watch. He believed if he kept his people happy with these fights, they would keep him in power longer. 85,000 people could sit and watch and over 400,000 gladiators were killed!
Now let's jump to the year 537 and visit the amazing Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey. It was originally built as a church when the city used to be called Constantinople. It is famous for its domes and 104 tall columns. The walls are covered in amazing mosaics Despite a huge fire in 859 and four huge earthquakes it is still standing today and you can visit it !
It was the largest building in the world and stayed as the biggest cathedral in the world for 1000yrs
Just jumping ahead over a thousand years just a few minutes walk from here is another incredible building called The Blue Mosque. It is called this because most of the paintwork inside is blue BUT that's not how it was originally and they are currently removing all the blue paint!
Both are in the oldest part of Istanbul
...and just a short walking distance is the Topkapi Palace, built in 1459 and the home of the Ottoman Sultans until 1853 with 400 rooms and Turkish baths.
They are all just a short distance from the shore of the Bosphorus Sea. Seen from the water, the Palace domes and minarets (towers) dominate the skyline.
Borobudur is the next incredible building to be built - it's an ancient Buddhist temple in Central Java, Indonesia and the biggest Buddhist monument in the world. It has incredible carvings and beautiful stonework. Some of the carvings show stories from the life of a special person in the Buddhist religion called Buddha.
It was built in the year 800 and took 75 years to finish. It is a huge place with a massive stupa as well as 72 smaller stupas. What's a stupa ? Good question - it's a dome shaped shrine Buddhists meditate around.
One of the most isolated places in the world is a small island called Easter island - it's a Polynesian island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean which is pretty much a single huge volcano and only 5000 people live there today.
So how strange that over 1000 years ago, 900 huge statues were carved! The statues are called 'moai' and are thought to have been carved by competing clans of villagers. Each statue is made from volcanic rock and has a face carved in it that is supposed to represent someone who was made into a God when they died. They all face away from the sea and towards the villages almost to offer some sort of protection Some of them were as big as 35ft and weighed more than 80 tonnes. Whoa that's seriously large and heavy too! It is believed that anywhere between 50 to 150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside, depending on their size. They dragged them on sleds and rollers made from trees.
A big lake - so many animals it's hard to keep count! And look closely - another of the Big 5 - the rhino!
How many can YOU see?
See the birds above the rhino - they're called oxpeckers -rhinos have something called a 'symbiotic relationship' with these birds.
Let's jump to 3000 years ago and to Mexico. We've seen pyramids in Egypt but did you know deep in the jungle are hundreds of smaller, steeper pyramids - in fact we don't know how many because they're still being discovered every day! They were built by Mayans but never lived in - they were used only as temples The Kukulcan pyramid is one of the most famous and best preserved Mayan temples in Mexico
In 1173 an amazing Tower in Pisa, Italy started to be built. It was built in three stages and took 199 years to finish! It's actually a bell tower for the nearby cathedral. It's made from marble and stone and isn't actually very tall but what makes it so special is it leans. It's known across the world as the leaning tower of Pisa. In fact it looks like it could fall at any moment!! It didn't always lean - but it's built on really soft soil so eventhough it's got worse, the same soft soil has actually helped it survive four super strong earthquakes over the years. In 1990 it was closed for ten years to try and straighten it - lots of things were done to improve it and stop it leaning and in 2008 it was opened up with the news that it would be stable for at least another 200 years You can visit the tower and see thousands of people taking photos pretending to push the tower and stop it from falling.
martial eagle
In 1150 in a country called Cambodia a temple was built in a city called Angkor. This was the city of the Khmer people and was built by the King in honour of the Hindu god Vishnu. This amazing structure is called Angkor Wat which means 'city of temples' and although the army tried to destroy it in 1431 you can still visit it today. It covers 150 square miles - that's 65,000 times the size of the White House! That makes it the biggest religious monument in the world. Originally it had over 1000 temples and was home to almost a million people It took 30 years to build with 300,000 workers and 6,000 elephants. Nowadays it's covered by the surrounding jungle. You can see why Indiana Jones was filmed there - it looks like a secret lost city in the middle of nowhere.
In 1066 William the conqueror took over England and to keep local people under control , in 1070 he built a castle from wood and stone in a place called Windsor about 20 miles from the Tower of London. Windsor Castle was built to protect the west side of London - back then 8 castles were built to defend the city! With over 1000 rooms and a chapel it has always been lived in by the Royal family - even today King Charles III uses it as a palace and weekend retreat. It's the largest, oldest , lived in castle in the world! More than 500 people work and live in the castle because it's still used every day. The Great Kitchen is the oldest working kitchen in the country and has been in constant use for over 650 years, serving food to 33 of Britain's 40 Kings and Queens. There is a very long walk from the castle called the long mile (which is funny because it's actually almost 3 miles long). It's surrounded by trees and grass and people today can picnic and visit you might even see the King and Queen!
One of the most famous cathedrals in the world was built in 1663: The Notre Dame in Paris, France. It stands on a small island in the middle of the city. But can you believe it took nearly 200 years to complete! The roof is entirely made of wood, dating back to the 12th century. The woodtimber frame is made of more than 1300 trees, each beam being made from one tree! The roof is a forest! It has ten huge bells but the original bells were taken down and melted to make cannon balls in the French Revolution, in 1791. Sadly a huge fire in 2019 destroyed large parts of the roof and the main spire collapsed - but lots of work is being done to make sure it's open again for tourists visiting Paris for the 2024 Olympics!
So how about a cathedral that has huge onions on top! Not really ...but there's a beautiful building in Moscow, Russia called St Basil's that was built in 1554. St. Basil's is renowned for its amazing exterior - although it was originally white with golden domes, it was decorated with geometric figures and rainbow coloured ceramics in the 1700's. The cathedral is known for its distinctive design, which features eight onionshaped towers arranged in the shape of an eight-point star. Each tower represents one of the eight churches that originally stood on the site. A ninth spire was added later. Inside the cathedral, there is a stone platform where important announcements were made, and public punishment was carried out. It also has another official name. Maybe the longest name for a cathedral ever? Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat!
Let's jump back to France but outside now in a place called Versailles. It's the 1600's and we look rather fabulous don't we?
King Louis XIII built a hunting lodge here in 1630 and kept adding more and more until it ended up being one of the most costly and extravagant buildings in the world. (In todays money it cost 300 billion dollars! Nowadays even the most expensive buildings are around 9 billion dollars !)
It has 2300 rooms including the famous Hall of Mirrors with 357 mirrors from Venice. When it was fully used, around 5000 people worked and lived in the palace including over 100 cooks and waiters. The architect messed up though - the distance from the kitchen to where the dining rooms were was SO far away that the royal family always ate their food cold! It was the home of French Kings for 100 years until the French revolution in 1789. The French people decided to make some big changes and did not like how they were being treated. They didn't want a Royal Family anymore and the King and Queen were killed! Nowadays you can visit it but guess what - this is amazing... it was ALWAYS open to the public! Even when the King lived there. Since 1682, the King decided to open the doors to anyone wishing to explore but there was one rule - people visiting HAD to wear a hat and carry a sword! In fact, at the Palace entrance, people could rent out hats and swords so that they were allowed in.
Off to India now to a place called Agra. And in 1652 an amazing building was finished called the Taj Mahal It's actually known across the world as a symbol of love and devotion. The emperor of the time , Shah Jahan built it as a commemoration for his wife Mumtaz Mahal after she died giving birth to their 14th child. He was so heartbroken he never fully recovered. He was eventually buried next to her in the Taj Mahal. It was also a palace, a mosque, and a guest house for the Emperor's visitors. Its made of marble and took about 20,000 workers and 1000 elephants to build it and transport the materials from all corners of Asia.
Petra is a historical city in Jordan which is also known as The Lost City.
The settlement started about 11,000 years ago and was carved from dusty pink sandstone often then painted in bright colours.! 20,000 Nabateans lived here and built it because it was so close to important trade routes in the area but it was also a tomb the King of Nabatea, Aretas IV. 85% of this city is still underground and hasn't been excavated!
Built in 1870, The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament, is the centre of political power in the United Kingdom.
The building sits on the bank of the River Thames in London,and is made up of the House of Commons and the House of Lords which together act as the UK's Government. Perhaps the most famous bit is the Elizabeth Tower, but you might know it as Big Ben which is actually the name of the bell!
In 1875 the amazing Musee de l'opera was built in Paris, France. The age of most theatres was about 13yrs because it seems they all eventually caught fire!! So it's amazing that 150 years later this one is still standing. A beautiful building that still today has operas and musical dramas performed every night. 30 types of marble from 8 countries was used to build it. It was actually built by Charles Garnier for Napoleon but the emperor died before it was finished. It is full of mirrors like Versailles with painted ceilings, chandeliers everywhere and 2000 seats draped in red and gold. One chandelier weighed 7 tonnes (that's the same as 28 fire trucks!) and in 1896 it fell to the ground and killed a man!
A coalition of cheetah
La Sagrada Familia is our next amazing building - the tallest religious building in Europe - it's a huge church in Barcelona, Spain designed by a very famous architect called Gaudi. The incredible thing is it started to be built in 1882 and it's still not finished! 140 years and not finished! In fact it's not expected to be finished until 2030 so that's 10 times longer than the pyramids in Egypt! Most buildings are straight but Gaudi liked to design things based on nature and swirling curves and twists. The interior pillars actually resemble trees, and when you look up at them their shapes constantly change, as real trees appear to do. There is also a tortoise and turtle holding up these pillars, representing both the earth and the sea. The mosaic on the roof is designed to reflect the moonlight. It turns into a kind of giant lighthouse to guide seamen back home. And by day, the reflection of the roof in the sun is planned so that the structure is visible from all points of the city.
If you ever visit Barcelona you will see more of Gaudi's amazing buildings - they are like magical, fairytale buildings!
La Pedrera
Casa Batllo
Make sure you go to the beautiful Park Guell built in 1914 everywhere you look you will see Gaudi's imagination!
Candy House Gatehouse
Hopefully you'll know this one. The Statue of Liberty in New York! There is a lot of history behind this statue. The French People gave it as a gift to commemorate American Independence on July 4th, 1776.
It was finished in 1884 and was sculpted by a French sculptor named Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. In fact the whole body is based on his family - the face is his mother while the body and arms are of his wife. When it was built it was presented to the American Minister in Paris. Can you imagine. The Statue of Liberty in Paris! The statue then came from France in 350 pieces packed in 214 huge boxes but it was stored for five years because the American team hadn't built the pedestal for it to stand in yet. The Statue is actually made up of copper. But the wind and rain have turned it green! The copper torch was replaced in 1986 with a torch made with 24-carat gold! The statue was not just supposed to be a symbol of freedom. It was supposed to be a lighthouse too but high costs and the dim light it gave off meant that never happened.
Two years later in 1886 the Tower Bridge was built in London.
It's one of the most famous buildings in the UK and was actually designed for a competition in 1877.. It took 1000 workers 8yrs to build and uses 11,000 tonnes of steel and is clad in Cornish granite and stone.
The bridge has two towers and the road can be raised in five minutes to allow river traffic to pass underneath. In its first year it was raised 6000 times. Nowadays it's still raised up and down over 1000 times a year. In 1952 a man called Albert Gunter was driving the number 78 bus over the bridge but the watchman forgot to ring the warning bell to stop traffic as the bridge was being raised!!! The road in front of him seemed to drop away. His bus was rising up and up !! Luckily he got all passengers off in time. Albert was given a day off work as a thank you and a reward of $10.
The Eiffel Tower was built as a temporary display for the 1889 World Fair in Paris, which commemorated the French Revolution's 100th anniversary.
In an attempt to extend the Tower's life, Gustave Eiffel erected a radio antenna and wireless telegraph transmitter in the Tower. The French government decided that the tower was too useful to be dismantled and is still used to broadcast radio and television programs around the world today
The tower's metal contracts in the winter and expands in the summer allowing the tower to change in size throughout the year. At the top of the tower, Architect Gustave Eiffel built a private apartment where he could conduct experiments and entertain special visitors The tower is repainted by hand every seven years. Over the years, the Tower has taken on various shades, from Venetian red to shades of yellow-orange. In 1968, the tower took on the shade that has come to be known as "Eiffel Tower Brown"
antenna to hear spy signals Gustave Eiffel's secret apartment there are 1655 stairs to the top!
on average two marriage proposals happen here every day!
elevators are greased with beef fat every day!
18,000 iron pieces are bolted together with 2.5 million rivets
The Empire State Building is one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world. It is located on Fifth Avenue in New York City. When the building was completed in 1931 it was the tallest skyscraper in the world, a title it would hold for more than 40 years until the World Trade Center was built in 1972. .
It only took one year to build and provided jobs for 3,400 workers. The building struggled to get people to rent offices because it was during a difficult time in US history called the Great Depression. One year after opening only a quarter of the office space had been rented. It was the first building to ever have more than 100 floors! From street level to the 103rd floor there are 1,872 steps and every year there is a race up the stairs to the 86th floor! In 1998, two British people who participated in the race hid parachutes under their clothes. When they reached the top of the building, they jumped off the building and parachuted down. Even though they were safe and nothing bad happened, they were arrested. Cheeky British people!
In 1933 work started on the longest tallest suspension bridge ever. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, USA. It is the most photographed bridge in the world and can be seen in over 30 Hollywood movies
Today over 120,000 cars cross the bridge every day but you cannot cross the bridge on horseback, roller skates or on a skateboard
The planning for the bridge took years. It then took four years to build, and it wasn't that easy to construct, due to wind. There was even an earthquake during construction!
It is easily recognized around the world because of its orange colour, officially called International Orange. This was chosen because it can be seen easily by ships and because it stands out against the colours of the local landscape. Before this was chosen, other colours were discussed, including yellow and black stripes!
FUN FACT: Over the years, three babies have been born on the bridge - all of them boys!
Fallingwater is the name of a summer house that a very famous architect called Frank Lloyd Wright designed. You'll read more about him later. It is in the woods over a waterfall in Pennsylvania, USA and known as the most famous private house in the world. Legend has it that Wright sketched the designs in only two hours. Apparently he visited the site in 1934 and then did nothing for a year. The client paying for the house was annoyed and called to say he was planning a surprise visit to see the plans - and that's when the architect and his team quickly drew it! Pretty amazing design for two hours! Wright wanted Fallingwater's interior to feel like the forest outside. The 5300-square foot home's walls and floors are constructed of local sandstone and he designed the house to sit on top of the waterfall! He also wanted to cover the outside concrete in gold leaf! Thankfully the clients refused!
If we jump to 1957 and go to Sydney in Australia there's another super famous Opera house that was built. It's probably the most recognisable music venue in the world - shaped like the sails of a huge boat. It has over 2000 opera, music , theatre and ballet performances every year in its seven performance spaces. The Concert Hall has the largest mechanical tracker organ in the world, with over 10,000 pipes! It was designed by a man from Denmark as part of a competition to come up with an amazing new opera house. Out of 233 designs his won! It was supposed to take 4 years to build but eventually took 17. There were so many problems in the early construction of the Opera House and huge cost overruns- the designer left the project and left Australia in the middle of the project, never to return! It's amazing to see at New Year's Eve with fireworks seeing in the New Year.
In 1972 work started on a building many people still think is ugly and very odd. In the middle of Paris, Centre Pompidou was built : named after the President of the time George Pompidou.
It's still the largest and most important museum of modern art in Europe and has more than 50,000 works of art on show across 10 floors plus a library with half a million books in! Built in the center of very old Paris surrounded by beautiful buildings this is a huge metal pipework block that some people feel looks like an industrial building Unlike any other building in Paris, all the plumbing, electrics, air circulation, wires and pipes - and even the escalators are on the outside of the building giving the museum its unique appearance. In fact it's colourful for a reason. All the pipes on the outisde are colour-coded: green pipes are plumbing, blue are for climate control, electrical wires are encased in yellow, and the red ones are circulation and health and safety! Kind of amazing ! What do you think of it ? Love it or hate it or not sure?
Look at this skyline. This is where Me & Henry clothes are made! This is Hong Kong! There are more than 9500 skyscrapers on one small island - and there are so many amazing buildings here but one to point out is the zig zag design Bank of China. Built in 1989 and designed with triangular frames covered by glass walls, the Bank of China Tower is one of the most distinctive and beautiful skyscrapers in the world. Every night at 8pm it is the star of the skyline with an amazing free light show where all the skyscrapers light up and let off laser beams.
In Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia there are the amazing Petronas Twin Towers These towers are the tallest twin buildings in the world with a height of 1482 feet and 88 floors. That's as tall as 1108 Henrys. !! The Towers have 55,000 glass panels covered by stainless steel visors to protect visitors from the tropical sun. Inside there are 29 double-decker high-speed passenger lifts that take you to a skybridge connecting the two towers. On 1st September 2009, a French 'urban climber' called Alain "Spiderman" Robert, climbed to the top of Tower Two. Using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices he did it in just under 2 hours !
How can we not talk about the tallest building in the world!! The Burj Khalifa in DUbai is a whopping 2716ft tall- that's nearly twice as tall as the Empire State Building! It has 163 floors and took six years to build by an American company opening in 2010. The shape was inspired by a beautiful flower found in the Arabian desert called the Hymenocallis. It has restaurants, offices, shops, apartments, a mosque and the world's highest tourist observation deck on the 124th floor. The elevator takes only 1 minute to get to the deck making it the fastest in the world! The building is a symbol of Dubai's amazing imagination - if you ever visit, it has the most incredible buildings and a skyline that has transformed from what used to be a desert just 20 years ago.
Look at this stunning futurisitic looking building! The Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan was designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid in 2007 and opened in 2012.
The Centre's amazing single never ending folded surface has made it an internationally recognised piece of architectural work and one of the best examples of something called 'Neo-futurism' The building won the Design Museum's Design award in 2014 making Zaha Hadid the first woman to win the top prize in that competition
What will the future look like do you think? There are so many cool futuristic looking buildings already - what will the actual buildings of the future look like? Well here's one example that has plans waiting to be approved It's called the W350 Project and is planned to be built in Tokyo, Japan. The 1,148 ft-structure will be made with more than 6.5 million cubic feet of wood and be able to withstand strong winds and earthquakes which happen quite a lot in Japan! The building will include wide balconies covered with greenery, a garden roof, massive internal open spaces and water features as well as shops, offices, an hotel and apartments. The tower forms part of the W350 Project, which hopes to "transform the town into a forest" should be completed by 2041 - how cool is that!
In fact one of the most amazing and famous architects of all time - Frank Lloyd Wright who designed that amazing summer house earlier in the book (remember?) - well he used to play with wooden building blocks! You might think building and being an architect is a grown up thing. You're wrong! I bet building is something YOU love to do... How many times have you stacked LEGO watched it topple over - rebuilt it bigger and crazier each time ?
That's how he found his love for building and architecture.
A really cool fort can easily be built with a kitchen chair and a blanket! Go and ask a grown up if you can play right now and give it a go! SEE...you could be an architect!
To build a room or a structure architects have to learn how to actually draw their ideas. They have to draw them in a way that other people like builders and designers can understand and make it become real! They do this by drawing floor plans or somethign called a blueprint. A floor plan is a drawing of a room from above - as if you were on the ceiling looking down. It shows the placement of walls and includes important things like doors, windows, stairs, and main furniture. It also shows the room names and the sizesof each room. Architects either make 2D floor plans like this or they can create 3D plans on computers. Or they can even build them as a model.
If you ask a grown up to help, why don't you use the graph paper on the next few pages. Using a ruler, pencil and a tape measure why don't you have a go at creating a floor plan of YOUR house. Or even just the room you're in right now !
Not everyone likes the idea of tall buildings. In fact China has banned new buildings over 1,650ft tall. But the big problem is the Earth's population is growing and everyone needs somewhere to live. So there are lots of people who think the answer is to build UP as high as possible to create huge cities in the clouds! Cities used to be 1 million people - now some are 10 million people - all these people have to go somewhere! Why don't you use this last page to draw your futuristic building and when you've done it tell a grown up to send it to us on Instagram and we will have a competition for the best design! Happy building!
my future building by architect...........................................................
follow the real Henry on his adventures in london @realhenrydog @meandhenrykids @meandhenry ...and buy the new collection of clothes available at a store near you and www.meandhenry.com written by Mark Jeynes
illustrated by Carolina Torres Carmo