Henderson Associates Architects, Inc

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

07/29/2026

𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡𝗗𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗬 𝗟𝗔𝗚𝗦

Although solar does the lion's share of renewable energy work, it would be disastrous to abandon other sustainable sources and methods.

But it looks like a downturn just like that is in the mix, despite the largest wind farm in U.S. history becoming operational last month—powering more than a million homes in New Mexico.

Wind projects are expected to be boxed in even more thanks to inflation, supply chain problems, and by increasingly unfavorable Trump administration policies.

That southwest wind farm, christened SunZia, will be our nation’s last landmark wind project for awhile. In fact, Bloomberg news reports that, “After this year, annual onshore wind power additions are forecast to decline until 2030, according to BloombergNEF.”

They also say that “The wind industry also has to contend with the end of lucrative tax credits this year, tariffs, and long waits to connect to power grids.”

So, although solar is king thanks to its relative ease of installation, the remarkable improvements in battery systems, and the fact that it’s cheaper to get up and going, wind can still complement the tapestry of a renewable-energy landscape.

This is an information-rich piece, so please do check it out as food for thought, if nothing else: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-28/biggest-us-wind-farm-arrives-as-trump-policies-hit-industry?

The pace of onshore turbine installations is set to slow until 2030 as the renewables sector faces a myriad of headwinds.

07/28/2026

𝗦𝗧𝗟 𝗕𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗢

Today’s tip of the hat comes courtesy of Unseen St. Louis, a Substack (https://unseenstlouis.substack.com/p/come-explore-the-landmarks-bingo) by historian and architecture enthusiast Jackie Dana, who helpfully points us toward the Landmarks Association of St. Louis’s “Summer in the City” Bingo Challenge.

The goal is to make a mere line on the bingo card, but Dana puts together a persuasive argument for trying to see all 25 sites. Not only that, but she herself
“[is] attempting to visit all 25 landmarks before the [official] July 30 deadline, all while sharing the history of each stop along the way. Rather than just posting photos, I’m digging into the stories behind each place—especially the ones that aren’t as well known.”

It makes for entertaining and educational reading (and viewing), to be sure. You probably can’t hit all 25 if you start now, but you can follow Dana’s journeys on Instagram, which features every stop she’s managed to make, or some of them on her Facebook. Instagram: On Facebook: Unseen STL page.

In addition, find the Landmarks Association here: https://www.instagram.com/landmarksstl/

07/23/2026

𝗖𝗥𝗔𝗙𝗧𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗡 𝗕𝗨𝗡𝗚𝗔𝗟𝗢𝗪

This terrific Thursday, let’s take a look at a 2,108 square-foot Craftsman-style bungalow, complete with its gray gables, fireplace, 2-car attached garage, and seating within a bedroom community of the Metro East. Could you fit right in on a front porch just like this, perhaps with a swing, in a similarly quiet neighborhood, overlooking pleasant landscaping? https://www.houzz.com/photos/grey-gabled-bungalow-craftsman-exterior-phvw-vp~211649504

If you have a location in mind, Henderson can create a dream home just like this, but with your fingerprint on its architecture and design.

📲 Please contact us to explore your options for homebuilding or renovation: https://hendersonarchitects.com/contact-v-2/ 💻