Archinect - News

Robert A.M. Stern Architects to author renovation of Austin’s historic UT Tower

2024-10-10T11:28:00-04:00

Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) has signed on to a new higher education project for the University of Texas at Austin. The project to renovate the historic UT Tower (aka the 'Main Building') back to its original 1937 appearance will be completed by the end of summer 2027. Restoration of its exterior will begin next month. The listed budget for the project is $70 million.

Image: The University of Texas at Austin

Snøhetta completes redesign of the Blanton Museum of Art grounds with rain-capturing shade structures and native plants

2024-07-17T14:31:00-04:00

Snøhetta has completed work on their $35 million redesign of The Blanton Museum of Art grounds for the University of Texas at Austin.

The debut of the New Ground Initiative comes at the end of a three-year revitalization that saw the Blanton continuously operate during construction. The 200,000-square-foot campus now has a greater permanent presence as the gateway between the university and city of Austin thanks to public art installations and key improvements to the existing landscape design and architecture.

Image courtesy Casey Dunn

Lead architects and UTSOA alumni Craig Dykers, John Newman, and Elaine Molinar were able to guide the project using their student experiences, resulting in an inclusive new space.

Image courtesy Casey Dunn

At the center of the project stands a previously completed intervention of petal-like 40-by-30-foot metallic shade structures that was designed to reconcile an open area now referred to as the Moody Patio. Besides providing protection from Texas's re...

UT Austin opens latest fellowship for emerging architecture and design academics

2023-11-22T14:25:00-05:00

Following our previous look at an opening for a Digital Design Specialist at Branch Technology, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an Emerging Scholar in Design at The University of Texas at Austin.

The University of Texas at Austin offers accredited degree programs in Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, and Community and Regional Planning. It also provides advanced studies in Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Historic Preservation, and Architectural History. The school is notable for its extensive material library and a technology lab equipped for AR/VR, drones, robotics, and digital fabrication research.

The two-year fellowship is open to “promising individuals at the beginning of their academic careers in architecture and its allied fields,” seeking to support the creation of a distinctive body of work and provide teaching experience in an academic environment. Among the qualifications re...

Get Lectured: The University of Texas at Austin, Fall '23

2023-09-01T11:59:00-04:00

School is back in session, and that means it's time for another installment of our Get Lectured series. Today, we’ll have a look at what’s in store for the Fall semester at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture in the first year of Dean Heather Woofter’s tenure.

The series begins on Monday, September 11, with a lecture from SoA alumni and Snøhetta founders Craig Dykers and Elaine Molinar. Their lecture on ecology and site considerations follows the debut of the firm’s New Grounds design for the Blanton Museum of Art this spring and precedes an appearance from Barkow Leibinger founder Frank Barkow on September 18.

New faculty member Dora Epstein Jones will speak on Wednesday, September 20, followed by Hector Esrawe’s lecture "No Boundaries: Transiting the Intersections Across Creative Disciplines" on October 2. The Pratt Institute’s Rosetta Elkin follows his appearance on October 16. The Founding Principal of Local Office Landscape and Urban Design, Walter Meyer, s...

Dora Epstein Jones, former A+D Museum Director, joins UT Austin School of Architecture faculty

2023-08-14T11:37:00-04:00

The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture has announced Dora Epstein Jones will be joining its faculty in the fall as one of five new appointments.

Previously, Jones served as former faculty at Texas Tech University at Huckabee College of Architecture in Lubbock and will be coming to campus as the school’s newest Professor of Practice. She had previously been employed as the executive director of Los Angeles’ A+D Architecture and Design Museum prior to her tenure at Texas Tech, where she was instrumental in steering the development of a new research praxis for faculty that “forge[d] stronger interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture, philosophy, and history.”

Beyond her academic career, which began in 2002 at SCI-Arc, Epstein has also previously served as a principal of the Los Angeles-based studio Jones, Partners: Architecture, and holds a Ph.D. in Architectural History, Theory, and Criticism from UCLA in addition to her M.A. in Urban Planning, which she a...