DuPage Children’s Museum Renovation

We did it, the reviews are in and we received a 5 star rating…There were audible gasps of joy and delight. Everyone came together and with one big push…..we were open! Thank you for the passion, the hard work and the commitment that had us looking so beautiful at 4:00 today. The Mayor was truly moved and just in awe of what were able to do in a few months.
~ Sarah Orleans, President & CEO, DuPage Children’s Museum

Nurturing Your Child’s Creativity

Creativity is a place you and your child should go.
~ Sharon Exley.

In Nurturing Your Child’s Creativity from PechaKucha Night Chicago Vol. 32, Sharon Exley presents her top ten of how creativity, challenge, adventure and more is nurtured in children, which shows why apples don’t fall far from trees (via her own brave and artful explorer daughter Emma).

Playing with Laminate Design

Wilsonart X Me

Hot off the press! Sharon Exley’s touting one of Architecture Is Fun’s favorite products, Wilsonart custom laminates, in full page ads found in Contract Magazine, Design: Retail, Metropolis Magazine and Hospitality Design magazine!

Children’s Museum of Fond du Lac

Engaging the Community
The Children’s Museum of Fond du Lac is a community energizer, bringing local business and community leaders together to create play and learning in a safe and healthy environment for all children. The expansion transformed a former Pick ‘n Save into a destination within the Waterfront District, now filling 22,000 SF with public spaces that engage, S.T.E.A.M. Classrooms, exhibits that cross disciplines and an outdoor space built by the community.

God Is In The Details: Lego™ as Theology

Winters in Chicago are long. Housebound over bleak weekends and chilly evenings, we began to entertain ourselves with creative projects. Our favorite activity has been assembling the Lego Architecture kits, historic sites and contemporary masterpieces, which we’d collected as each limited edition set had been released. Our penchant for play and a belief that busy hands are happy hands led us to construct replicas by Frank Lloyd Wright, Sir Charles Barry, James Hoban, SOM, Mies van der Rohe and others—and we were warmed by the delight we found in building together.

Evanston Public Library: Children’s Library

Making Room for Growth
With collections exceeding capacity and unanticipated citywide increase in juvenile population, the Evanston Public Library had little room to grow. This challenging renovation reconfigured and re-envisioned the formal library, transforming it into a literary children’s garden of delights.

Garden In A City: Children’s Midway

A Pathway of Hands-on Gardening That Grows On Families
Garden in a City is America’s first garden and landscape design show focusing on urban horticulture. The inaugural season of this in-ground show featured a Children’s Midway where children and families found engaging and educational interactive elements that relate to the greening of our urban community.

Kansas Children’s Discovery Center

The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center’s 15000 SF building is nestled within the wooded acreage of Topeka’s Gage Park, which encourages interaction indoors and out-of-doors.

City of Chicago Ogden Park & Regional Playground

Nurturing a Sense of Community Pride
Ogden Park opened to the public in 1905, as an innovative site providing relief from tenement living that sparked the development of other social properties across the country. One hundred years later, the family-centric design reconnects the park to its changing community, encourages visitation and enriches the Olmsted Brothers and Burnham’s original social program.

Texas A&M Math and Science Education Center

Outdoor STEM-Based Laboratories
This learning facility houses informal, imaginative, and open-ended science and math labs for teacher training that is a departure from formal educational centers of its kind.