Best Architecture Schools

The Architecture of Architecture Schools

By Laura Raskin, Asad Syrkett

**Gund Hall, Harvard University**

As a student at Harvard's Graduate School of Design in the late 1960s, Leland Cott helped design Gund Hall's original desks. The 7-foot-tall workstations clogged the dramatic tiered studio space but blocked some cigarette smoke and noise. In 2010, Cott, now of Bruner/Cott, devised shorter wood desks with translucent tack boards and model carts on wheels. (A forthcoming renovation will address notorious climate issues, although some retrofits have been made to the HVAC systems.) Students may miss ample pinup space and more elbow room, but they like the increased daylight and improved interaction.
—*Laura Raskin*

*Photo © Bruce T. Martin*

**S.R. Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology**

Mies van der Rohe's iconic jewelbox for the Illinois Institute of Technology's school of architecture was looking its age'49' when Krueck+Sexton Architects won a bid to renovate it in 2005. Crown Hall's steel frame was corroding, and its signature black, lead-based paint needed to be stripped and replaced, as did its glass panels. A steady stream of visitors and Mies fans means working in what can feel like a 'fishbowl,' says third-year M.Arch. candidate Lauren Kottis. It also means having to rein in workspace messiness to preserve Crown's pristinely minimal aesthetic for tour groups. But, Kottis is quick to add, the building is an excellent teaching tool and all-around asset, helping attract powerhouse lecturers to the school.
—*Asad Syrkett*

*Photo courtesy Krueck+Sexton Architects*

**Milstein Hall, Cornell University**

OMA's 47,000-square-foot addition to Cornell's architecture school connects new to old by attaching a horizontal box to the existing Rand and Sibley halls. Milstein includes a two-story, domed crit space, an auditorium, and studios housed in an enormous 'plate.' M.Arch. candidate William Smith says that to appreciate Milstein, one has to have spent time in Rand. 'Rand was like a factory,' he says. 'Milstein is more like a corporate office where you don't want to make any dust.' Time will tell whether a more carefree attitude will take hold. Smith's favorite spot is the upper third of the lecture hall at sunset: 'It's a spectacular moment between inside and outside.'
—*Laura Raskin*

*Photo © Brad Feinknopf*

**Southern California Institute of Architecture**

Los Angeles's Southern California Institute of Architecture, or SCI -Arc, is known for an educational approach that encourages experimentation and progressive thinking. But the self-contained school's quarter-mile-long, 61,000-square-foot building, a former freight depot renovated by SCI -Arc alum Gary Paige, has been criticized for being less than avantgarde and Paige's insertions too minimal. Some students don't mind the tabula rasa quality of the space: 'It's great that the building doesn't impose anything on you,' says first-year M.Arch. 2 candidate Solar Labrie. And the transparency of the long, skateboard-navigable space is 'exciting,' she adds. 'You don't miss anything that's going on.'
—*Asad Syrkett*

*Photo © Tom Bonner*

**Paul Rudolph Hall (formerly Art and Architecture Building), Yale University**

When architect Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building opened in 1963, Ada Louise Huxtable, then the architecture critic of the New York Times, lauded it as a 'spectacular tour de force,' but student reaction was decidedly less enthusiastic. Degree candidates complained that the building was forbidding, its ceilings too low, and the workspaces alternately too hot or too cold. After an extensive $126 million renovation (and an 87,000-square-foot addition) by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates in 2008, some minor problems persist, like a lack of pinup space, says Amrita Raja, a third-year M.Arch. student. But overall, Raja says, the building is 'really considerate' to students and provides pleasant workspaces. An open plan also means better sightlines and more daylight through the building, Raja explains. Her fellow third year student Altair Peterson concurs: 'When you're gone for the weekend or for the summer, you get back and remember how great the building is.'
—*Asad Syrkett*

*Photo © Peter Aaron/Esto*

**Hinman Research Building, Georgia Tech**

'You'll never get an audience that is so much part of your medium as when you do a school of architecture,' says Nader Tehrani, principal and founder of NADAAA (formerly Office dA) and head of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's architecture department. NADAAA, with Lord, Aeck & Sargent (LA S), turned the Hinman Research Building into an annex for the College of Architecture. While LA S restored the exterior, NADAAA 'laid bare' the interior, with its 50-foot-high bay laboratory. The open plan of the ground floor is flexible studio space where students get to mix. A 'crib' hung from the ceiling creates second-floor studio space and a lounge. 'You see the meshing of older and newer technology and construction techniques and how they can really be in dialogue with each other. It's fantastic,' says Stefann Plishka, a third-year M.Arch. candidate. 'Being able to create really great environments without the same environmental costs is going to be a huge part of our profession. That's important to see.'
—*Laura Raskin*

*Photo © Jonathan Hillyer Photography*

As Marc Treib writes in an essay in Joan Ockman's Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America, architecture-school buildings haven't changed much from their early-20th century design roots: prominent drafting rooms and studios, surrounded by classrooms, lecture halls, and offices. Each iconic structure remains a symbol of the institution's educational mission. But with the rise of digital tools, increased class sizes, and an emphasis on collaboration and transparency in both architectural education and the workplace, schools must adapt. Many of them have. The following is a look at six structures renovated in the last decade, and how well they do'or do not'serve their clients: students. Most of these renovations have contended with a need to both preserve an icon and address the evolving requirements of students, faculty, and the demands of the profession. The degree candidates we spoke with feel passionately about their buildings' quirks'from favorite new views to skateboard-friendly hallways' and use them as case studies for learning.

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Laura Raskin, a former RECORD editor, writes about architecture. She recently moved with her family from Brooklyn, New York, to the Green Mountains of Vermont.