This public university is the second oldest institution of higher education in Texas, founded 106 years ago, and the first in that state devoted to equal education for African Americans. The architecture program was founded forty years ago and was a part of the College of Engineering. Recently, it has become its own college.

The site is a gateway to the campus. Located on a corner at the main entrance, the project is connected to the rest of the campus by a pedestrian street. The new 110,000 sq. ft. building houses the architecture program, art program, Construction Sciences, the CURES Center (Center for Community Urban and Rural Extension Services) and the Cultural Center.

Long bars distributed over three floors contain the formal teaching spaces. Two rectangles create an in-between space, “the canyon.” This fluid interior space offers numerous places for social exchange and dialogue critical to the development of an educational community focused on encouraging cooperation rather than competition.

The mandate to make a brick building was an opportunity to explore this ancient craft. Unit and multiple, scale shifting, weight, and plasticity were conceptual frames of reference. Walls were created with curvilinear corbelling. On the north façade, the brick peels away like curtains to allow slots of light into the classrooms and center of the building. These curtains are cantilevered and float above the ground. The brick Cultural Center is linked to the rest of the building through a structural module and proportioning system thus remaining an identifiable element but also a part of the whole.