“What’s in name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

In those lines, from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet declares that Romeo is not defined by his name but by who he is. Such was the case when in January of 2015, Southern Polytechnic State University was consolidated with Kennesaw State University to form the “New U,” making it the fourth such name change in SPSU’s 66-year history. Today, the University is named Kennesaw State University but still maintains the same academic programs offered at the institution for decades.

“For the past 50 years, we have offered architecture, and that hasn’t changed with the consolidation of the two institutions,” said Tony Rizzuto, chair of the architecture department at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta. Currently, the University offers the five-year B.ARCH degree and the M.S.ARCH degree with two concentrations, in urbanism and sustainable design, with the intention of opening a program in interior design in the coming years.

The new university combines the best from two of Georgia’s most respected institutions. Designated a comprehensive university by the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents, it offers students a broad spectrum of academic options with more than 150 undergraduate and graduate degrees, including nationally ranked programs in business, engineering and information technology, plus premier architecture, education, nursing and science programs. With a student population of more than 33,000 KSU is now one of the 50 largest public universities in the U.S. While much of the essence of the Marietta campus remains the same, including its B.ARCH and M.S.ARCH programs, the consolidation and name change bring new opportunities.

A World-Class Institution
Today, more than ever, the architectural profession is increasingly global, diverse and interconnected. At Kennesaw State, we recognize the responsibility we have to prepare our students to be global citizens. Part of that responsibility lies in exposing our students to diverse global traditions and cultures, vernacular strategies in design, and the importance of demographics in shaping design solutions.

Over the years, the Department of Architecture has vigorously pursued travel and study-abroad options for our students. In 2003, the department teamed up with the Hochschule Anhalt University of Applied Science, the site of Gropius’ Dessau Bauhaus, to create its first study-abroad program. Every summer, our students spend seven weeks in Dessau exploring modernism and German culture. Today, the Dessau program has expanded to include numerous university students throughout Europe. In 2011, a collaboration with Milano Polytechnico resulted in our regular participation in urban workshops held every other year. The only U.S. university to participate in the program, it brings faculty and students together to address specific planning initiatives in the year’s designated city. The department also developed an annual ArchiTour, a trip to a city in North America to explore architecture, art and urbanism, and has expanded it to European cities such as Paris and Barcelona.

KSU’s Division of Global Affairs helps expand the architecture department’s global perspective through various global initiatives. Global Affairs works to build relationships with local chambers of commerce, domestic and international universities, and humanitarian organizations to find new ways to create global engagement opportunities for our students and enhance Kennesaw State’s international prominence. Their efforts not only assist our faculty in improving our existing programs, but expand options for our students to study abroad. The Department of Architecture is currently developing one for KSU’s newest education site in Montepulciano, Italy

The Department of Architecture is also expanding our participation in the European Council study-abroad program with faculty and students in Edinburgh, Paris and Milan. KSU’s commitment to global initiatives through its planning and financial support for students have placed it in the top 10 U.S. schools for number of students studying abroad, according to a report by the Institute of International Education.

Attracting and retaining a strong and diverse faculty committed to professional excellence is central to the success of any architecture program, according to Rizzuto.

“They provide the foundation for understanding the different ethical, social and political forces that make up the cultural context of architecture. That provides the necessary foundation for dealing with the complex global issues that underlay socially and critically informed work,” he said.

Members of Kennesaw State’s architecture faculty hail from the U.S. and around the globe, including Albania, Austria, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, providing a global perspective on architecture.

Balancing Theory and Practice
Founded in 1964 as an Architectural Engineering Technology degree, the current B.ARCH program at Kennesaw State has stayed true to its roots in practical, applied skills, while balancing theory and practice remains a core value for the department. Our curriculum emphasizes applied learning and hands-on experience combined with theoretical exploration.

“We believe this contributes to higher design standards, critical thinking skills and a more informed learning experience,” Rizzuto said.

The department has a long history of design build initiatives that range in scale from housing to public parks to the most recent work, a piece of street furniture called the “Urban Blanket.” Designed as part of an exhibition for Modern Atlanta and the Midtown Alliance, the project was a collaboration between LGHaus, TopSouth and Kennesaw State. The 18-member Digital Design Build class, led by Professor Gernot Riether, used LGHaus’ HI-MACS, a solid surface material used predominately in kitchens, for the project. TopSouth, a local fabricator, provided the training and the industrial ovens needed to develop the curvature of the surfaces.

Maintaining balance means embracing new technologies and encouraging creativity and innovation through the integration of the theory, art, technology and the science of the built environment. Having well-equipped facilities is essential to our contemporary architectural curriculum. The integration of new technologies is made possible because of the University’s long-term financial commitment in our facilities’ infrastructure. We have one of the most extensive wood shops available, a media center with 10 plotters and five scanners, five laser cutters and one large flatbed laser cutter, a vacu-form machine, etching machines, a MediaScape lab, three 3D printers, a three-axis CNC router, a five-Axis CNC router and a materials library. Students also have access on the Marietta campus to a concrete lab, a metal shop, water jets, sand casting facilities and robotic arms. These facilities allow students to prototype their designs, which brings a completely distinct perspective to design: the centrality of the fabrication process. This fall, we are upgrading our facilities, expanding our digital fabrication lab and materials library, and installing new HVAC systems to improve the air quality in the shops.

Creative Collaboration
In his Ten Books on Architecture, Vitruvius noted the necessity of a multidisciplinary education for the architect. That is arguably truer today than it was in ancient Rome. At Kennesaw State, our mission calls for creating and continuously improving a multidisciplinary approach to learning, creativity, scholarship, application and engagement. That includes seeking out collaborative projects with other departments. Recently, architecture students in the environmental technology courses teamed up with biology students to design, fabricate and test prototypes for green wall and roof systems. In the Light Lab course, architecture and mechatronics students worked together to develop prototypes for kinetic building skins. These projects bring research into the undergraduate curriculum and introduce students to new perspectives in problem solving.

Today’s architects increasingly find themselves leading teams of researchers as they work to develop new systems to improve building performance. To develop strong research and collaboration skills in our architecture students, we are intent on providing competitive opportunities. In the B.ARCH program, a research-based studio is integral to its curriculum. Through a highly competitive process, the department solicits proposals from outside design professionals and scholars who are currently engaged in innovative research or bodies of work that inform architectural design for the department’s Focus Studio. As part of the Focus Studio, professionals engage in the educational forum as a means of advancing research toward its eventual application in practice. This program not only expands on the intellectual offerings of the full-time faculty, but engages the profession directly and demonstrates to students that the basis of a true critical practice lies in a critical engagement with design research.

Preparing for the Future
Sustainability and building performance are key concerns in practice, and the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) has done much to integrate those into the fundamental student performance criteria of architectural education. Those concerns are inextricably linked to the larger discourse of urbanism, its morphology, scale, social inequities, politics, sustainability and infrastructure. At Kennesaw State, we integrate the study of urbanism into the core curriculum, rather than cast it as a distinct discipline. Our students learn basic urban issues, through a course in urban theory and the UrbanLab, a studio that provides a dedicated space for the study of the history of urban theory, methodologies for urban research and a forum for exploring ideas about urbanism. Through these opportunities, students learn urban planning, theory and design, and develop their design intelligence by understanding the context of architectural production and bring broader social concerns to the design process.

Like all architecture programs, Kennesaw State’s program prepares students to enter the profession. That includes making students aware of the path toward licensure, encouraging them to register for the Intern Development Program (IDP) to secure internships, and become familiar with the registration process. Our curriculum also contains a professional practice core sequence that includes courses in technical documentation and codes, design cost control and professional ethics.

By maintaining close ties with colleagues in practice through faculty engagement, we maintain an active awareness of the challenges and accomplishments of the profession. Many KSU faculty are licensed architects; some maintain practices and are American Institute of Architects (AIA) members. Kennesaw State’s Rich Cole AIA, dean of the College of Architecture and Construction Management, and professors Kathryn Bedette AIA and Christopher Welty AIA serve on the board of directors of AIA Georgia, as does a student who serves as the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMAS) representative to the board. Professor William Carpenter FAIA is currently president-elect of AIA Atlanta. Other Kennesaw State faculty and students serve on city planning committees and community boards.

An important aspect of our educational mission is to make our students aware of the multifaceted roles and responsibilities of the architect as designer, activist, leader, facilitator and advisor in both the profession and the community. Equally important, we understand the value of a liberal arts and problem-solving-based architectural education and what this provides to our students, and other professions.

Our architecture students graduate with the tools they need to succeed in a critical practice – critical thinking, foundational skills, technological and material awareness, experience with hands-on applications, an understanding of the rich historical and theoretical foundation of the discourse and the ability to translate those skills into architectural interventions that are culturally sensitive and socially aware.

Architects serve many clients, including the consumer, the neighborhood, the broader community and the greater good.

“We instill in Kennesaw State students that it is in the scope of our obligation to serve societal needs by architects serving as civic leaders,” said Rizzuto. “This notion is reflected in the types of projects students choose for their thesis project and reflects the larger interest of this generation in civic engagement and working on projects that have the potential to make a difference in the world.”

Over the past several years, student thesis projects have addressed the socio-economic issues related to slums in Kibera outside Nairobi, Kenya; the problem of child poverty and homelessness in Bogota, Colombia; architecture’s response to cognitive disabilities like Alzheimer’s and autism; the plight of the physically disabled poor in Machachi, Ecuador; the plight of women around the world, including battered women, single mothers living in poverty, homeless single mothers and the oppression of women in Iran.

Issues related to cultural identity have also played an important role in thesis projects, including the collusion of race politics and infrastructure development in the destruction of African-American communities in downtown Atlanta; the sense of place and identity along the Ocmulgee River in Georgia; and the potential of vernacular traditions and craft to revitalize the local architecture of Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast.

Sustainability has also been an important topic at Kennesaw State. Architecture students are interested in urban ecologies and biophilia; as well as the relationship to concepts of dwelling and the potential impact on building and urban typologies and brownfield restoration. Our students routinely exhibit a high interest in architecture’s ability to engage social issues and propose problem-solving solutions to some of the world’s most egregious concerns.