‘Kid Architect’ book showcases Indiana architecture, little known facts

Gary Vance is one of the 3-percent of US architects elected to the American Institute of Architects College of fellows. He’s a Ball State University Grad, and now he can add author to his list of achievements with his “Kid Architect” book series.

Writing a children’s book about architecture has been a career bucket list for Vance. The development of their Kid Architect book series has been a family project involving all of his stateside kids and their spouses. 

His daughter-in-law leads the graphic design. His daughter who is a teacher leads our content development and manages their social media. His son developed and leads their website development. His son-in-law is their “help desk” person. Lastly, his wife manages all of the business aspects of the “Kid Architect” book series. 

The book concept is to create “Kid Architect” who goes to cities, states and universities to explore, learn and expose design and architecture to kids. This includes the landscapes, buildings and public art which are located throughout our cities, universities and state. 

Kid Architect is not a character or an image in the book so the reader or person being read to, sees themselves as Kid Architect. By design, “Kid Architect” is not a boy or girl; not a race, color or creed; and not an ethnicity or nationality. In addition, we strive to reach minorities and the underprivileged throughout the book with content and images. 

The book is designed for people 5 to 95 years old. Architecture and design is such a fun and interesting topic for people and love to see it and talk about it !

Representative STEAM work sheets are included in the book and STEAM work sheets for all buildings and public art are available to download from the website for free.

This is a book series and Kid Architect can go to anyplace in the state or US in future books to share the goals of educating young people in architecture and design.

 The AIA needs to reach its next generation of architects at younger ages and develop their interest throughout their K – 12 education and this is one of many methods.  

For more information, visit the “Kid Architect” book website which includes downloadable STEAM pages of all buildings and public art.

You can also find more about the book on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.