Past Events
This January, join us for a special game day at the museum. Design your own board game: Create a story for your game and choose from a variety of materials to make your board. Write challenge cards and craft your own player pieces out of clay.As a family, explore design by playing a round of the museum’s own Design Around Town board game. Invite your family members to come up with creative solutions to design challenges at an ice cream shop, a school, a stadium, and more.
Join us to celebrate the opening of Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne! Visit the exhibition to explore how things are made, from felt hats and pianos to semiconductors and rockets. Transform wool through wet felting to create your own handcrafted felt keychains or ornaments.
Join us this summer for hands-on activities inspired by Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Families are invited to sketch, print, or build together. On Wednesday, July 30, inspired by the abundant textile patterns in Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams’s dining room installation The Offering, design your own placemat! Create stamps using foam and cardboard and print with fabric paint on linen! Take your placemat home to use at your table.
Join us this summer for hands-on activities inspired by Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Families are invited to sketch, print, or build together. On Wednesday, July 16, try out fun drawing prompts and sketch in the museum’s garden or cool off and be inspired by the mansion’s interiors. Create your own Cooper Hewitt postcard with what makes New York City home to you and mail it to a friend!
Join us this summer for hands-on activities inspired by Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Families are invited to model, sketch, print, or build together with creative projects related to the exhibition. On Wednesday, July 2nd, discover how architects creatively tackle issues like weather, materials, and tiny spaces. Then, try your hand at architectural mini-challenges with clay, cardboard, and other materials inspired by the exhibition.
In June, celebrate Pride by designing your own placemats to welcome loved ones to your table. Draw inspiration from works in Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, including the PIN-UP film Dream Homes, which tells the story of three LGBTQIA+ communities exploring daily life and ensuring everyone feels at home, and The Offering, by Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams, which explores how textiles and table settings can help express who we are and provide a sense of belonging.
Design urban habitats for the feathered friends among us! Learn about bird-friendly designs and create your own model skyscraper.
Discover design in nature with community biolab Genspace. Extract the DNA of a strawberry, take a look at cells under a microscope, and learn about a variety of biomaterials. Check out how designers are inspired by nature, and our own biology, in Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial.
Join an adventure in March! Embark on a scavenger hunt through the Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial galleries. Discover how creative architects tackle challenges like weather, materials, and tiny spaces. Then, try your hand at architectural mini-challenges inspired by the exhibition.
Do you have a young artist, bookworm, or budding designer at home? In February, join Black Artists + Designers Guild to design your own dream library, in conjunction with their installation “The Underground Library” in Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial.
Celebrate the holiday season by designing a letterpress poster to gift to a loved one or friend!
Design your own wallpaper inspired by the brilliant colors and shapes of fall in New York! Guest artist and educator Joe Baker will demonstrate how to make leaf rubbings and create a repeating pattern.
