Henderson Associates Architects, Inc

09/07/2026

𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗬 𝗟𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗥 𝗗𝗔𝗬

Whether your workplace is in the architecture, building, design, and construction trades or not, we hope you have the day free to spend time with family or friends and gather momentum for the first full week of September. Fall is on its way, and we love that.

See you back here (or on our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hendersonassociates/) tomorrow!

09/02/2026

𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘'𝗦 𝗟𝗜𝗕𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬

Once again, Colorado has all the outdoorsy things. This time, it's a traditional library blended with a nature-lending site where you can check out both actual snowshoes and books on the topic, and it's called the Anythink Nature Library. Grounded in the Environmental Kinship Model, the Anythink, in Thornton Colo, features indoor spaces including shelves, meeting rooms, and a kids’ rock climbing room, plus “Nature-focused materials and TryIts selected to spark outdoor learning and adventure.”

Outside the library proper, the campus flourishes as a “community hub designed for learning, reflection, and discovery” and, along with garden areas, connects to 100-plus miles of community trails.

Davis Partnership Architects and its team have outdone themselves. Check it out:

https://davispartnership.com/news/anythink-nature-library-is-open-and-redefining-the-library-experience/

And
https://www.anythinklibraries.org/anythink-nature-library/

The Anythink Nature Library is a place where curiosity and care for the natural world take root. Grounded in the Environmental Kinship Model and shaped with insight from Indigenous and Native American…

08/26/2026

Even if you’re neurotypical, chances are good that you’ve been somewhere—a school, a doctor’s exam room, a Post Office—with poor lighting that buzzes or slings stinging beams of light somewhere close to the radiance of the sun.

For the neurodiverse and those with epilepsy or neurological conditions, a designer’s bad choices in lighting can extend far beyond the ick and into the sickening, as in making them physiologically ill.

As a sort of antidote to dialed-up lighting, Jaxson Stone offers up several accessible solutions to Metropolis readers, in “9 Neuro-Inclusive Lighting Solutions for Sensory-Sensitive Design.”

Stone holds an MFA in Interior Design from Parsons School of Design, teaches at Parsons, and is an associate editor at Metropolis. In these nine neuro-inclusive lighting ideas, you can find the “building blocks for lighting schemes that are friendly to all neuro types.”

“Sensory-sensitive lighting isn’t just about eliminating all overhead lighting or dimming all the lights so you can barely see. Rather, it’s about developing flexible, multifunctional lighting systems that give agency to users.”

Some of their recommendations include the Verner Panton Flowerpot Reissue (by &Tradition), with hues ranging from Zesty Orange to Steel Blue to Ivory, and LightArt’s Cloudform collection. The latter “responds to this growing demand for acoustic ceiling solutions that ‘prioritize occupant wellness, performance, and architectural cohesion.’ Cloudform is particularly well suited for workplaces, civic buildings, education, and hospitality settings or any other large, open-plan interiors where reverberation control is critical.”

There’s even an indoor/outdoor portable light that you’ll need to see to appreciate. Check it out, plus the other sensory-inclusive solutions here: https://metropolismag.com/products/9-neuro-inclusive-lighting-solutions-for-sensory-sensitive-design

These neuro-inclusive lighting products can serve as the building blocks for design schemes that are friendly to all neuro types.

08/22/2026

𝗔 𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗨𝗠 𝗜𝗧 𝗜𝗦

At a time and galaxy not all that far away—on Sept. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles—the story of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will unfold to visitors.

The museum is surrounded by a flourish of greenspace and resides in Exposition Park in the South Los Angeles region and was designed by Ma Yansong of MAD, with new greenspace designed by Mia Lehrer and colleagues at Studio-MLA.

In addition to galleries and theaters, dining and greenways, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art hones in on and “celebrates the power of visual storytelling.” Named for director George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, and dropping names all its own, the museum “explores how images move us and shape our collective memory. From Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait to Norman Rockwell’s scenes of everyday life to Charles White’s portraits of dignity. Each invites reflection. Each tells a story.”

The main building seems to fit the fantastical Lucas mold, and could perhaps have been taken from an artist’s sketch of Coruscant or Cloud City.

Could this storytelling museum be the one you’re looking for?

More: https://lucasmuseum.org/

Learn more about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, opening in September 2026. Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson. Discover our collection.

08/21/2026

The Conserving Black Modernism (CBM) initiative, which has partnered the National Trust for Historic Preservation with the Getty Foundation, has just named its 2026 grantees: five sites in five states receiving $750,000.

As the name implies, the CBM idea aims to preserve the historic work of Black architects and designers in the United States. Its grant-making body is lodged within the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund of the National Trust, whose motto is “Saving Places.”

Historic sites by Black architects in Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas, Tennessee, and Massachusetts were tapped to receive this year’s funding. Near East Chicago, in Indiana, the 1973 St. Mark AME Zion Church remains a remarkable structure “designed to evoke interlocked praying hands with a multi-planed triangular roof and ribbon windows.” Wendell Campbell, the first president of the National Organization of Minority Architects, conceived of the church as “an example of modernist and neo-expressionist religious architecture.” For this building, funds will finance “the development of a Conservation Management Plan that documents existing conditions, establishes preservation priorities, and provides recommendations to guide future phased rehabilitation.”

In Milwaukee, Central City Plaza, consisting of three separate structures, was designed by Alonzo Robinson Jr., Wisconsin’s first licensed Black architect. For about a decade, the Plaza was also a Black-owned and -managed shopping center that “aimed to build economic resiliency in an area severely impacted by Urban Renewal,” before a part of it was acquired by The Salvation Army. The motel, of the three buildings, features arched porticos and fluted concrete panels, considered to represent the New Formalist style.

Take a look at the other worthy grantees in the 2026 cohort:
https://savingplaces.org/conserving-black-modernism

Conserving Black Modernism is a grant partnership between the Getty Foundation and the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. The program identifies Modernist historic sites and enables planning, professional training, and storytelling to sustain these places and celebrate the work of these...

08/13/2026

𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗘𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗦𝗘 𝗧𝗛𝗨𝗥𝗦𝗗𝗔𝗬

When Dr. Seuss wondered who will speak for the trees, he probably didn’t have architects top of mind, but this gallery of homes, hideouts, and public-facing wooden structures or playgrounds—sometimes in the trees, sometimes simply made of wood—makes the case for this often playful typology.

And so, we return to the carefree ways of childhood while exploring the joys of the architectural form that is the treehouse. Swing through this wide-ranging gallery before the school year is upon us once again (tag, teachers, you’re it!): https://www.archdaily.com/1127653/treehouses-from-childhood-imagination-to-architecture

08/11/2026

𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗛 𝗖𝗜𝗧𝗬 𝗦𝗧𝗟

CityScene STL reports that construction near 5300 Virginia in South City just kicked off in late July on a mixed-use development, dubbed Virginia Plaza, planned to provide affordable housing and opportunities for new commercial space.

DeSales Community Development (https://www.desalescd.com/) is using Roanoke Construction as the general contractor for Virginia Plaza, while Naismith-Allen is the project architect.

Their “plan calls for 78 new homes (apartments and townhouses) that are a mixture of affordable (30% and 60% of the area's median income) and market rate,” along Virginia and Eiler, spanning the Dutchtown and Carondelet neighborhoods. Other buildings being razed or renovated in the area will create new commercial space as well.

This plaza is conceived to replace several overgrown lots, and other blight encompassing a former Family Dollar in disrepair, the Virginia Theater, and Cleveland High School, and it is expected to be done sometime in 2028.

You can peek at the rendering here, and, meanwhile, we look forward to hearing more about this mixed-use project in south St. Louis: https://www.cityscene-stl.com/post/virginia-plaza-aims-to-be-a-dutchtown-carondelet-anchor

Community-centered wins continue to stack up in, and around, South City's Dutchtown and Carondelet neighborhoods.DeSales Community Development is setting sail on a mixed-use development that'll renovate multiple older structures and construct other new ones near Virginia and Eiler. The plan calls fo...

08/06/2026

𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝗧𝗛𝗨𝗥𝗦𝗗𝗔𝗬

Happy Throwback Thursday! What a momentous year 2026 has been: the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (250), the patent of the telephone (150), of Route 66 (100), and of Edwardsville's own Route 66 10-K race (20 years!), last held in June 2026.

From all of us at Henderson Associates Architects, please enjoy your Thursday as this hot, smoky summer begins to (we hope) wind down!

08/05/2026

𝗠𝗜𝗗𝗖𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗬 𝗙𝗨(𝗥)𝗡

Classic 20th-century designs are classic for reasons like innovation and memorability, or even nostalgia. But, perhaps somewhere along the way, they lose traction, become diluted, or, on the other end of the spectrum, go stratospheric with outrageous prices. If you vibe to these vintage forms and functional furniture, you needn’t despair, because Dwell.com offers up some “fresher alternatives worth considering to populate your living space,” if you’re maybe not up for a Bellini sectional sofa, price tag $22k and some change.

Here: https://www.dwell.com/article/classic-furniture-and-lighting-designs-contemporary-alternatives-63fb7ead



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Top: Shell out $22K+ for the Camaleonda Sectional Sofa by Mario Bellini for B&B Italia. "The seat module, backrest, armrest, and capitonné design of the new Camaleonda are still manufactured with the innovative system of cables, hooks and rings created by Bellini in 1970. Internally, it has been redesigned to be more comfortable than the original."

Bottom, left: Is it a cracked slice of melted cheese or is it a chair . . .? Leave it to the avant-garde Latvians: Daydreamer by onlyonly studio costs $8,200. It's billed as "a collectible lounge [featuring] a steel base and a yellow plant-based latex cushion."

Bottom, right: Cabinet+ by SKNYPL (ranging from $700-$4300)
consists of four pieces: two stools, a coffee table, and a rack. When you put them all together, they become a sculptural large shelving unit.

08/03/2026

𝗦𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗕𝗔𝗠𝗕𝗢𝗢

What material is ancient but also modern? Lauded yet misunderstood (or not fully grasped)? Fast-growing but renewable?

Of course that historically useful material is the light and sustainable building material bamboo. Reconsidering bamboo’s merits, and our perhaps too-high hopes for its use in sustainable architecture, construction, and design is worth your time, and Jonathan Yeung, a Designer (Architecture and Interior) and founding partner of YY Projects, provides just such a detailed and thoughtful analysis.

He writes, “The more important question is not whether bamboo is sustainable in a general sense, but what kind of architectural culture it requires: What forms of knowledge, maintenance, regulation, labor, and time are needed for its sustainability to become real?”

Logically speaking, bamboo simply cannot replace in any 1:1 fashion either concrete or steel. “And,” Yeung writes, it “should not be asked to. The more important question is where architecture has been using permanent materials to solve temporary problems. Bamboo becomes important in these gaps because it offers a material logic closer to repair than finality.”

The tension between craft and building codes, temporality and longevity, meets in bamboo, and Yeung explores its carbon abilities, resistance to predictability, and much more here: https://www.archdaily.com/1042929/the-politics-of-bamboo-from-vernacular-craft-to-temporal-infrastructure



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Photo of Huanglong Waterfront Bamboo Pavilion, by Atelier cnS + School of Architecture, South China University of Technology. Image © Ruibo