The Best House of All
I am an architect. Architects design and make buildings because they like buildings and houses. Just like I do. Which is why Ma calls me her 'little architect'.
To build a house, you need space in some place.
Your house could be in a full-of-trees forest place, a hot-hot-hot desert place, a really-high-up mountain place,
a brrr-it’s-full-of-snow place, a splashy-sploshy rainy place, a muddy green village place or a tall-and-big-can’t-see-the-end city place.
Or be a house inside a house!
To build a house, you also need stuff. To find stuff, you must look around.
A forest has trees. A mountain has stones. The Arctic has snow. A village has mud, big leaves for thatch, and bamboo. A city has bricks, cement, steel and glass.
A house has all kinds of stuff.
Before you build your house, you must know what you want it to do.
Igloos made of snow keep you warm!
Wood and stone houses with sloping roofs make the rain and snow run right off.
Native American teepees made with poles and animal hide keep you cosy. They are easy to pack up and carry around.
Houses on stilts keep you away from water…
… and wild animals!
Once you have space and stuff, you begin to build.
Your house can be any shape and size.
Round and small like a mud house with a thatched roof. Tall-enough-to-scrape-the-sky skyscraper. Upside-down-ice-cream-cone teepee. Round-like-a-cake Mongolian yurt. Ball-sliced-in-half igloo. Huge-castle-shaped …

To know more about the houses marked out in bold lettering, turn to the back section.
... castle!
Or a super-fancy house like mine.
But the best house of all…

… has family to make it a home!
Some Houses Around the World
Yurt: Found in Mongolia, yurts are made with a wood frame and thick mats. The parts of the yurt are light enough to be carried on horses and yaks.

Teepee: Made with long poles and animal hide by the Native North American Tribes in the plains, this is another house that can be packed up and carried around!
Toda dogle: A half-barrel-shaped hut of the Toda tribe, these are made with sticks, bamboo and thatch. They have a tiny entrance to crawl through. This keeps out wild animals. The Toda people live in the Nilgiri hills in South India.
Igloo: Did you know that a house made of tightly-packed snow bricks can keep you warm? At least warmer than the-40 degrees centigrade outside! You can find them in the Canadian Arctic and in Thule in Greenland.
Stilts: What shape is that? Like an insect? Stilts help keep the place cool and are common in South East Asia.
