Welcome to Curbed's first gift guide, wherein our editors sort through a retail landscape rife with tech, toys, textiles, trinkets, and tchotchkes. This year we're shopping for some rather specific recipients—though we think you'll find the gift selection broadly appealing. Shop on!
If a child or teenager in your life spends hours playing with blocks, sketches buildings when handed a pencil, or devours books about structures and the people who build them, he or she may harbor dreams of becoming an architect. Given the way architectural careers work, it may be a long while before this aspiring architect is actually licensed to design a building. But in the meantime, there are plenty of toys, books, games, and blocks that give kids and teens a chance to play architecturally. Here's a selection for holiday gift-giving.
Young Architect Building Set • Deskstructure Desk Organizer • Iggy Peck, Architect • Ito Bindery Drawing Pad • Paper Landmarks: Burj Al Arab • Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building • Eames House Blocks • The Future Architect's Handbook • Illinois Maxi Playhouse
Scientific Explorer Young Architect Building Set
by Poof-Slinky
$99.99 at Poof-Slinky
For those looking to augment their children's drawings of houses with peel-and-stick doors and windows.
Deskstructure Desk Organizer
by Héctor Serrano for Seletti
$58 at A+R Store
Pens, pencils, and paperclips not included.
Iggy Peck, Architect
by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts
$16.95 at Abrams Books
For those moments when even the bedtime reading should be architectural.
Ito Bindery Drawing Pad
by Ito Bindery
$27-$45 at Ode to Things
If your aspiring architect progeny is ready to draw without graph paper, these pads are both practical and aesthetically pleasing.
Burj Al Arab paper model
by Paper Landmarks
$16.65 at Paper Landmarks
Even the helipad and the hanging restaurant appear in this 1/1000 scale model of the Burj Al Arab, one of the world's tallest hotels.
Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building
by Christy Hale
$18.95 at Lee & Low Books
For young children, this book compares everyday shapes to famous buildings.
Eames House Blocks
by House Industries
$150 at Uncle Goose
Train 'em early on the American modernist classics and build the Case Study No. 8 house with this set of 36 blocks.
The Future Architect's Handbook
by Barbara Beck
$16.99 at Schiffer Publishing
Your aspiring architect can take a step-by-step look at how the architectural process really works.
Illinois Maxi Playhouse
$14,639.66 at SmartPlayhouse
This playhouse, probably the same size as some studio apartments, is perfect for any budding modernists. Remember: children with glass playhouses shouldn't throw stones!
· Holiday Gift Guide [Curbed]