Worldly (Re)construction
As I write this note, I hear the whirring and cacophony of the machines constructing our new building, the William T. Cannady Hall for Architecture. This facility, designed by Ünal Karamuk and Jeannette Kuo, will expand the existing footprint of our school, adding world-class spaces for exhibitions, fabrication, and collaboration, for both students and faculty alike. This building is our chance to face outward, inviting the community to our spaces for discourse, discussion, and dialogue. It’s also an aspirational building; it reaches into the future, focused on architectural research and knowledge production with eyes wide open.
This theme of construction extends beyond our physical footprint to the reconstruction of our curriculum, which is being redesigned to address more directly the most pressing, planetary issues of our time. Using the agency and beauty of design and its uniquely propositional nature, the new curriculum will work across scales and themes to connect the people and the planet through a variety of environments–from a single building or a city to a region and the globe.
We embrace wholeheartedly the global responsibilities placed upon our field, using diverse lived experiences and rigorous research methodologies to collectively take stock of our discipline. Rice Architecture aims to foster such spirited and intentional discourse—a discourse directed at the reconstruction not only of a single school or its curriculum, but that of the entire planet.
We know that design can change the way people live, think, and move. This responsibility to our future denizens is immense, and we meet this challenge every day with a great sense of joy and optimism.
Please join us as we celebrate these new possibilities, both here at Rice Architecture and in Houston, as well as further afield through the global reach of our faculty, alumni, and friends.