Facilities

New Facilities for "Flexible Space" Learning

The School of Architecture is a spacious adaptive re-use of Marywood University's former gymnasium. This state-of-the-art example of sustainable design lies in close proximity to the university's highly acclaimed art facilities encouraging cross-disciplinary learning and discovery. It features a primary circulation spine connecting two sides of the campus, two levels of studios, a fully-equipped woodshop, plaster-casting room, central printers and plotters, a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) Lab, flexibly-furnished classroom space, a student lounge and a reference library adjacent to the design studios.

A two-story Commons surmounted by a continuous skylight harvests abundant natural light throughout the day and serves as the building's "agora" (in ancient Greece, the place of public assembly) - an open, shared, central space for educational exchange among all students and faculty. This flexible place is intended to foster serendipitous encounters, collective discussions, debates, displays and project critiques.

Each student is provided with an individualized work space designed to accommodate a laptop computer (with wireless Internet connection), drawing board, storage area for personal items, and integral pin-up wall.

 

The Design Studio-the Center of Holistic Learning

Architectural education must seek, generate, transfer, and question knowledge with breadth and imagination. The fundamental place of learning is the design studio - the primary place of research, exploration, and testing of ideas. Marywood's architecture curriculum is conceived to avoid the idea of segments of knowledge and to favor the concept of quilted knowledge-the notion that we learn most effectively by weaving together concepts and their meaningful applications. Thus, classroom learning and studio learning will form interdependent patterns of holistic learning.