HINES COLLEGE | Strategic Planning

• Assistant professor Mili Kyropoulou established the Building Analytics and Sustainable Environments (BASE) Laboratory to encourage research initiatives promoting performance-based, human-centric thinking for sustainable environmental design at the building and urban scale.

CULTURE OF CARE AND WELLBEING

• Updated the college culture statement prior to the start of the 2023-2024 academic year to better emphasize the College’s commitment to advocating for an environment of support and wellness.
• As the University expanded its resources supporting mental health and wellbeing, the College actively promoted the information and resources to better inform its community.
• Designed a quiet room in the College’s student services office for students to take a break from their studies and activities, supporting better mental health.
• Established a student reporting resource for students to securely share concerns about their education or personal welfare.
• Collaborated with UH Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and the College’s student council to organize events around empowerment, camaraderie, and unity for students.
• Hosted monthly forums for students to discuss anything on their minds in a secure environment.
• Student advisors utilized campus resources to better support students through advising and encouraging well-informed choices.

• Students and faculty gain global exposure and experience through their participation in the AIA International Conference in Mexico City during the fall 2023 semester.
• UH participated in the 2024 Texas8 International Graduate Project-based Summer Program. Texas schools of architecture sent select students to Italy to work collaboratively with the local community on a design/build project, promoting graduate education in Texas.

PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION + DEVELOPMENT

• The College recently established BUILD+, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization expanding upon the graduate design/build program and allowing the College to explore more sustainable opportunities, build speculative projects, and provide students with internship opportunities.
• Increased professional career development opportunities with alumni representation and leadership to better prepare students searching for internships and full-time opportunities.
• Expanded the annual career fair to accommodate more companies seeking to hire the College’s students and afford students the opportunities to gain professional experience and pursue career opportunities.

RESEARCH

• Hines College faculty submitted over $5 million in research proposals thus far during fiscal year 2024.
• Seven faculty members received UH research grants to explore architectural design methodologies, materials, UX design, thermal comfort, and urbanism.

• Defined a three-semester program offer allowing first and second-year students taking summer studios the opportunity to continue the studio sequence in the fall. For example, the summer student cohort taking ARCH 2500 can take ARCH 2501 in the fall semester. In the upcoming academic year, studios of third, fourth, and fifth years will be offered, leading the program’s continuity in fall, spring, and summer semesters.
• Established design media curriculum, scheduled it for implementation, and obtained approval from the College’s undergraduate committee during the spring 2024 semester. The program assisted with the logic and details of implementation, facilitated ideas and methods, and supported implementation. The degree path sequence of three courses – HIST 1377, ARCH elective of spring second-year, and ARCH 1210 – has a new schedule/term to accommodate ARCH 1210 in the fall as the first course of design media, followed by design media II in the spring.

• Adopted environmental responsibility as a program ethos and manifested it as routine across all courses, as well as maintaining continuous discussion among program leadership and at course preparation meetings.

• Implemented a tool for observing and coordinating course schedules across levels to ensure minimum overlaps of tasks and deadlines.
• Employed the “pencils down” approach in design studio courses to help students to navigate a healthy and manageable end of the semester in other academic areas requirements.
• Implemented tools, including the UGA catalog and the UGA semester dossier, to facilitate students’ and faculty's navigation of the semester. These materials are always available on the UGA Teams channel.

• Promoted and collaborated with the graduate architecture program to successfully establish the Queretaro study abroad initiative launching fall of 2024, offering 15 credit hours.
• Promoted and collaborated with the graduate architecture program to successfully publish the 2021-2022 prospectus, expanding the visibility of the program and its students and faculty.
• Promoted and supported the second year of the Hines Design as Scholar/Scholar as Design (HdSd) program with the MESO-COSM exhibition by UH assistant instructional professor Daniel Jacobs and Rice assistant professor Brittany Utting. The initiative’s third year will highlight Micropolitan America.

• Consolidated the program’s portfolio workshop series, instructing portfolio review sessions for all students from first to fifth years.
• Expanded the ARCH 5508 professional level course by including more sections dedicated to professional training in building design.

• Coordinated a faculty rotation throughout the advanced level to promote faculty research, including history, theory, and criticism (HTC), technology, and design media academic area faculty.

• Re-calibrated the studio design sequence, re-branding the interior architecture program around themes of equity, materiality, and sustainability. This re-calibration considers other interior architecture programs, potential graduate career trajectories, intense growth, the new foundation sequence, and a new history hire. 
• Actively seeking community-based projects engaging students, faculty research, and cultural and community partners collaboratively to preserve local cultures while mitigating climate change. For example, the program is in conversation with artist Theaster Gates and the CAMH about an IA studio supporting their collaboration with the Fifth Ward, preserving the historic bricks of the Fifth Ward. Multiple pending grant proposals support this work.
• Actively recruiting and supporting students with interdisciplinary interests beyond design, including the social sciences and African American studies, to enrich the studio design culture and processes.
• Integrated the materials lab throughout the core design curriculum to encourage innovative uses of novel materials in design processes.
• Gifted funding from retired professor James Thomas to establish a scholarship for an outstanding interior architecture student.
• Continued to identify opportunities for engagement with other programs to increase interdisciplinary efforts. Interior architecture and industrial design (via faculty Adam Wells and Marta Rodriguez) are investigating a possible joint studio for fall 2025.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Encouraged design faculty to manage costs by using reclaimed materials in their studio design processes and finished models.

• Established an ongoing relationship with the interior architecture studio organization to support program needs in exchange for financial support for their programs.
• Seeking funding to build out the second-year furniture scheme for a “Relaxation Station” in the architecture building’s second-floor alcove.

GLOBAL COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

• Faculty continue engaging internationally with the community, exploring new opportunities. The K67 kiosk, by assistant professor Dijana Handonovic, was exhibited in London summer 2024.
• Publishing a prospectus on the work of an adaptive reuse studio on the adaptive reuse of an existing structure into a space of refuge for refugees in Athens, Greece.

PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION & DEVELOPMENT

• The program is contributing to the purchase of a knitting machine for the Keeland Design Exploration Lab to expose students to the fabrication of different materials. Faculty will receive training on the machine and then train other faculty and students.
• Partnering with the Houston AIA Interior Architecture Committee to establish a competitive internship program for interior architecture students, starting in the summer of 2027, with five progressive local firms. Working on moving the professional practice course, which will include space planning, to the third year.

• Increased enrollment in the Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design (BSED) degree program from 16 students (fall 2023) to 58 students (fall 2024).
• Revamping the BSED degree program with a trimester model, requiring students to attend classes in the fall, spring, and summer semesters and allowing them the opportunity to graduate in three years, ready to pursue a graduate professional degree program.
• The BSED is a pre-professional degree plan educating students in the skills of multiscale design through varied coursework with emphasis on interdisciplinary opportunities. Through the degree program, students develop a well-rounded knowledge of design and design tools, while also honing their abilities for practice at all design scales, from micro to macro. BSED offers an interdisciplinary curriculum degree with courses and studios currently offered in the Hines College's architecture, interior architecture, and industrial design programs.

• Initiated an interdisciplinary collaboration between our industrial design graduate studio and mechanical engineering's capstone project.
• Introduced INDS 3397 – “Integrative Life Drawing for Wearable Technology,” open to all students from all colleges at UH.
• Developed an interdisciplinary studio collaboration between INDS 4500 and IA 4500 for the fall 2025 semester.
• Advanced planning for a UX/UI certificate and minor program open to students outside the industrial design program.
• Working towards establishing an XR/VR lab to be used for research and as a classroom.

• Secured a grant for the development of a new elective exploring sustainable research and application to be named “Design for Sustainable Consumption in Everyday Life.”

• Developed and created more financial support for students through research and teaching assistantship opportunities.
• Working with our student organization to organize on-campus and off-campus gatherings, workshops, and company visits.
• Exploring ways to better engage with industrial design freshmen beginning in fall 2024.

• Launched the program’s first summer design experience for high school students – “The Idea Factory” – in summer 2024.

• Continuing to expand the industrial design career center, assisting students in obtaining internship opportunities, prepare for interviews, and develop effective professional portfolios.
• Seeking to expand the industrial design’s college career fair opportunities by offering online interviews and portfolio reviews for small firms.

• Continue to invest in leading-edge technologies, particularly in the XR/VR realm to secure space for establishing a research lab in the Hines College.

• Revisiting core studio sequence under shifting coordinators and continuing with new hires. Pursuing further integration through readings and careful course calibration of HTC and studio curricula. Furthering engagement with Keeland Design Exploration Lab and forthcoming CRAFT Lab into the studio sequence, design/build, fabrication studios, and House.
• Introduced and expanded a dual degree to include the College of Engineering Technology Division’s construction management program. The degree proposal is currently working its way through university approval. The effort to establish a certificate in historic preservation is currently in development.
• Progress was made on expanding the design/build program to BUILD+ for innovative curricular research and community engagement.
• Introducing non-Linear coursework, eliminate pre and co-requisites, to allow sequential customization.
• Preparing for expansion of graduate programs to field the Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design graduates seeking to pursue a professional program for licensure.
• Revisited and expanded the graduate visual studies sequence, converting three units to two-plus-one.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Expanded the analysis of the architecture building as a case study for application.
• Integrated coursework and readings on technology and sustainability.
• Foregrounded sustainability in core technology and studio sequences, including a new materials course and integration semester (materials, systems, and structures).

• Expanded proactive interfaces and forums with leadership (coordinators and directors) and students (via the Hines College’s student council) with students.
• Established in-studio group meetings by level.

GLOBAL COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

• Developed expanded degree offerings to include urban design, construction management, historic preservation, and further connections to business and real estate development with publicity, web presence, and student advising.
• Expanded visiting faculty, particularly leveraging the Stern Visiting Professorship, and design/build to engage global voices with diverse perspectives and themes.

PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION & DEVELOPMENT

• Developed curricular adjustments to be responsive to professional preparation.
• Engaged professionals as guest critics to give students the opportunity to obtain feedback from industry professionals
• Exploring continuing education opportunities for alumni and industry professionals.

RESEARCH

• Integrated topical studios to accommodate faculty research.
• Invested in an exhibition and symposium on housing through the UH small grants program.