Children have an innate ability to imagine spaces, and express those through built form. We all have favorite memories of building forts with sofa cushions, and building fantastical cities out of wooden blocks. This process inevitably involves the creation of a story that gives the abstract stacking of forms and shapes a true richness, and a concrete reality.

We are able to nurture this skill and the joy of this experience by offering the occasional class in architecture to grade school children. Using storytelling and literature as the impetus for a project, students are introduced to a project and a site to design for. The role of the architect in society is discussed, and examples of buildings both historical and contemporary are presented to open the kids to the wider world of the built environment.

While in graduate school Lars studied with Kathleen Kupper and the Vitruvius Program to learn and master this method. He has taught in many venues throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including weekly artist-in-residency programs, the 6-week summer camp East Bay School of the Arts, family day programs at SFMOMA, and a multi-weekend residency at ZEUM, the interactive art museum for children in San Francisco.