It's National Engineers Week! Full day of events for kids at CAF this Sunday

It's almost here: National Engineers Week, February 17-23, the annual event that bring engineers into the spotlight often hogged by their architect partners, reminding us that no matter how beautiful a building might be, it's a whole better when an engineer is on board to make sure it doesn't fall down.

This Sunday, February 17, the Chicago Architecture Foundation kicks it all off with a Studio for kids, ages 5-18, Engineering the 21st Century City, a free event from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., at CAF at 224 South Michigan.

at CAF, Bob Johnson (at microphone, left), Thorton Tomasetti's Joe Burns, far right

Our indefatigable correspondent and engineering ambassador extraordinare Bob Johnson provides a preview . . .

For all of you who have kids and grandkids, there's going to be all kind of presentations geared to showing kids how skyscrapers - and bridges - stand up and fall down.  Architectural student Rocco Buttliere is going to bring a whole collection of his Lego skyscrapers.  You name it, he's got it: the World Trade Center, the old one and the new one, Freedom Tower, Sears (Willis) Tower, Burj Khalifa. And then engineer Larry Novak, formerly of SOM and now of the Portland Cement Association, will be giving a presentation on the Burj Khalifa.  Believe it or not, we'll have kids designing bridges on a computer.

Sounds like a fantastic event.

The Chicago Architecture Foundation is actually devoted the entire month to engineers, including its Wednesday lunchtime lectures.  I attended a great lecture this week by Thornton Tomasetti's Joe Burns on what's below Block 37.  This coming Wednesday, the 20th, Krueck and Sexton's Tom Jacobs talks about Glass Engineering in Architecture, and on the 27th, Terry McDonnell of US Services discusses the engineering and design considerations behind the Willis Tower Ledge.  On Tuesday, the 26th, Dr. Shankar Nair discusses Skyscrapers - Past, Present, Future, including the surge in super-talls.  On Saturday, the 23rd, there'll be a Building and Testing Studio for teens, down at Crown Hall at ITT.  More information on all these events here.

Also on the 23rd, from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. the annual DuPage Engineers Week Expo will take place at the IIT's Rice Campus in Wheaton, with more family-focused events, including the ZOOM into Engineering and Design Squad, Lego Robotics, Mr. Freeze Cryogenics, and 4,500 Years of Structural Engineering Program.

On March 8th in West Chicago, Siemens will be holding its 9th annual edition of its Introduce  a Girl to Engineering  event, offered to 100 girls in grades 5 through 12 and hosted by women engineers.  Contact Jayne Beck via email to register and for more details.

And we couldn't leave you without this photo of the winners of this year's Chicagoland Future City competition, which brings together area students to put their visions of the future into built form.  This team of students from St. Paul of the Cross in Park Ridge go on to the finals in Washington, D.C., where the winner gets a trip to Space Camp.

Future City, Tillim's Avenue Patrice Lumumba, pre-restoration FLW Studio, AFHc Holiday Hangover and more - additions to the January calendar

It's the second week of the month - time to add another half-dozen great items to the January Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Saturday the 29th at UIC, 750 South Halsted, it's time again for  Future City Competition™ Regional Finals.  Now in its 19th year, this great program matches up area middle school students with engineer mentors to design cities of tomorrow, using SimCity, which they then have to translate into table-top scale models. The winners move on to the finals during National Engineers Week in Washington in February, where the top prize includes a trip to Space Camp.  (Last year, the competition's winning team also made a trip to the White House to meet President Barack Obama)

This Thursday, January 13th, sees two new events. At 6:00 p.m., at the Columbia College's Museum of Contemporary Photography, Northwestern's Krista Thompson will be in conversation with South Africa born photographer Guy Tillim, whose new exhibition at the museum, Avenue Patrice Lumumba, explores the "architecture and infrastruture of colonial and postcolonial Africa."

Also at 6:00 at Unity Temple in Oak Park, Jack Lesniak will be providing a virtual pre-restoration tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio as it existed in 1974, after a series of remodelings had seen it broken up into apartments.  Next Tuesday, the 18th, Architecture for Humanity Chicago will be holding it's 2nd Annual Holiday Hangover Fundraiser at the Steelcase showroom at the Mart, while on Thursday the 27th the Chicago Botanic Garden and Bartlett Tree exports will be sponsoring a day-long symposium, Sustainable Site Development: Trends, Challenges & Innovations.

There are nearly three dozen great events still to come in January, including tonight's  Mayoral Forum on Public Housing in Chicago, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Cultural Center.  Check them all out at the January calendar here.