Minoring:               Architecture & Design

 

Southwestern has offered a minor in architecture and design since 1985, with Prof. Thomas Howe (art historian, archaeologist, design teacher) providing lecture courses in architectural history and studios introductory architectural design, and Prof. Patrick Veerkamp (ceramicist) offering courses in design, with projects in industrial and landscape design. To date the program has a 100% acceptance rate of getting students admitted to design graduate schools in fields of architecture, interior design, industrial design, landscape architecture, construction contracting, engineering and urban planning, and students have gone to graduate schools at Harvard, Yale, U.T. Austin, Clemson, UCLA, Univ. Houston, Univ. of Arizona, U.T. Arlington and Washington Univ., St. Louis. Many graduates have found themselves design project leaders at leading firms within ten years of leaving SU (see below).

Acquiring a liberal arts B.A. may add about one year to attaining a professional degree as opposed to entering directly into a B.Arch program, but liberal arts background has a record of endowing design professionals with greater depth and flexibility throughout their careers. Students major in some other field that can enhance a design career, including almost any of the humanities, business, science, mathematics or studio art. Most SU graduates apply for M.Arch first degree programs.

Students should major in any other discipline which appeals to them.

Three architecture studios introduce students to basics of programmatic design on a specific site, and basics of three-dimensional drawing and thinking (Studio I), design to modern structures (e.g. steel frame airport design project), and most unusually, historical design (designing a Neoclassical assembly hall or Gothic cathedral, with full consideration of actual structure!). Design courses introduce fundamental of design, with projects in table utensils, landscape architecture, furniture, etc. Students can take a history course in History of World Architecture, or Modern Architecture.

 

 

 

 

 

     Above, left, Scott Adams, SU ‘97, now with Overland Partners, San Antonio, and above, right, Julien Meyrat, SU ‘98, now with RTKL architects, Dallas, at the alumni design exhibit, Nov. 2007.

Recent Architectural Work of Southwestern Alumni                                                                                      An alumni exhibit in Nov. 2007  presented work of Southwestern former students who had been through the architecture and design program and who had all graduated around 1995-99. That is, they had been out of Southwestern only about ten years, and architecture school only about five or six years.                                          

These students majored in a variety of liberal arts disciplines (Pre-Med, French, philosophy, art) and by their early thirties were finding themselves as either independent registered architects (Amy Robbins Dempsey, design-build architect, Austin), or lead projects designers of large firms (Julien Meyrat, RTKL Architects, Dallas), of nationally well-know “regional” architects (Scott Adam, Overland Partners, San Antonio) or unlicensed designed leaders in large firms, returning to architecture school (Michal Golinski, RD Davis Architects).

All were very excited to be working as architects, despite the considerable difficulties and stress of the profession (the term “architorture” was apparently coined by Prof. Howe during this cohort of students)…all expressed gratitude of getting to work in a profession where no two days are ever the same.

All said that the most challenging aspect of their profession was dealing with the passions of people, and the thing which best prepared them for the daily rigors of interaction, and which allowed them to advance relatively rapidly to leadership positions was their broad liberal arts education.

 

                                          Minor in Architecture and Design Studies

2010-2011 Catalog:

Six courses (Minors consist of a minimum of 18 credits):

ART70-314 Architectural Studio I: Introduction to Drafting and Programmatic Design

ART70-324 Architectural Studio II: Historical Design

ART70-334 Architectural Studio III: Modern Structures

ART70-414 Design I: Introduction

ART70-424 Design II: Intermediate

One course from:

ARH71-114 World Architecture: A Comparative Cultural History

or

ARH71-764 Modern Architecture

Pre-2010 Catalog:

21 semester hours, including Art 69/70-703, 713, 723, 753, 763, Art History 71-703, 713. Students wishing to major in studio art and minor in architecture and design studies should take the courses with the 69- prefix rather than the 70- prefix.