People’s Places and Their
Spaces
Tipi• This is a tipi (or tepee)
from the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon.
• Native Americans from the Plains have built tipis for hundreds of years.
• Tipis kept the cold out in the winter, and the sun and heat out in the summer.
• It could be packed up and moved when they needed to travel to find food.
Tipi Frames and Materials
• Tipis were made out of tall wooden poles and about twelve buffalo skins that were sewn together with sinew, or animal muscles cut into thin threads.
• They weighed over 550 pounds each, and it took at least three horses to carry it!
Log Cabin• This is the Laurel
Lodge, a Log Cabin.
• It is in Greenlawn, Suffolk County, New York.
• Log cabins have been around for hundreds of years.
• Some early log cabins might not have even had glass in the windows.
Log Cabin Joinings
• The joinings of the log cabin are where the logs crisscross together.
• Sometimes the cracks in the cabin walls were stuffed with mud to keep the cold out.
Hawaiian Grass House
• This building is made out of thatch, or grass.
• The grass is woven together and layered to keep the rain and weather out.
Cliff Dwellings
• A dwelling means a place where someone lives.• These houses were carved out of cliffs and made
out of rock and mud. • The Pueblo Indians of Colorado made these houses
in about the year 1200. That’s two-hundred years before Christopher Columbus discovered America!
Reginald DeKoven
House• This is a
townhouse built in the Gold Coast region of Chicago.
• It was built in 1889 and is made out of brick, wood, and stucco.
• It is an example of the Elizabethan Style.
DeKoven House Blue Prints
• This is the blueprint of the DeKoven House.
• A blueprint is the drawing an architect makes when the house is being planned.
Your turn to talk…Discuss with the class:
• Which house looked like it was the most
effective at keeping out rain?
• Which house looked like it was the most
effective at keeping out heat?
• Which building would you like to live in?
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
• How are these houses different? • How are these houses the same?
• Describe what you see in your own words. Use as much detail as possible.
Now it’s your turn to be the architect!
Think about what life might be one-hundred, or even one-thousand years in the future. What resources will people have? What will people build houses out of?
Design a house of the future. Pretend that you live there. Then write a first-person narrative about what it’s like to live in the house.