"Would you let me design your house?" asks 10-year-old Christopher Santucci

Many people have laughed at our teacher for doing this. They tell her it’s stupid and can’t be done – they roll their eyes and make her feel bad - that children aren’t capable and it will be awful. But she keeps telling us we can do whatever we believe we can do – so we’re going to do it! And it’s going to be great !

My friends and I are very happy to have this opportunity. This is not an everyday opportunity to design a house. Many adults never even get this chance, we are probably some of the only kids in the world to do this. We are all honored to be in the architecture class of Mini-Masters. It is not only educational, but it is also one of the most fun things I have ever done, besides hockey and soccer of course.

One of my best friends, Davide Graziani, said that he loved doing the floor plans for his dream house. Miss Elizabeth put it on foam core board and made it into a little 3-D house that now sits on his desk.

On our day up north we first had fun at the beach. Then we had a picnic lunch at a beautiful chalet that Miss Elizabeth designed all on her own. She’s built many homes over the years. This one is what she calls an Intergenerational house with two kitchens, five bedrooms, two washrooms and she rents it out as a business.

I hope that our house will be a super fantabulous house. We all decided that the best place to build it will be on the side of the lake – the view is beautiful.



My friend Delia Gerbasi said when Miss Elizabeth told us we could choose a piece of land and design a home that would really be built that she didn't believe her. "Kids don't often get this kind of responsibility," she said at the time. "If Miss Elizabeth is going to let us design everything, even choose the land we want to build on … wow!, that'll be really amazing and so fantastic," said Delia.

Someone had offered Miss Elizabeth a lot of money for this lot on the lake, but she turned them down and said she was saving it for us. She must really like us because I don’t know anyone else who would have done this.

She won’t let us design it until we learned how, so this year we learned how to read and draw floor plans. She also taught us about her favorite architects, Phillip Johnson and Frank Lloyd Wright to help give us ideas that she would like.

Delia’s parents weren't in favour of her taking the wheelchair home because it wouldn't fit in the house which wasn't really designed with a wheelchair in mind, but when she fell and broke her leg … she ended up in a wheelchair for weeks. She said that she accidentally learned more about handicap access than she wanted to know! Her father Jack said that it really did fit in the home after all.

I look forward to seeing how our house will come out – if it’s good, maybe I’ll be an architect one day.

Photo:Elisa

Photo: Courtesy of Christopher Santucci

Photo:Wheel

Photo: Verne