The HCOA is committed to the themes of urban and community design, advanced fabrication
techniques, historic preservation, and healthcare. We connect our surroundings to
an increasingly globalized world and seek challenges where architecture can play a
role in the health and wellbeing of diverse populations.
We seek to define research and creative output as broadly as necessary to embrace
the entire field of architecture and wants to foster a presence in this region to
sharpen critical acumen, expand career prospects, and value the resources of West
Texas to support, leverage, and cultivate situated local knowledge within a matrix
of the land, culture, and history.
We aim to create a foundational presence in Marfa, develop a reciprocal relationship
with the City of Lubbock, and establish a precedent in the West Texas region from
which to build interdisciplinary programs that engage Architecture, Art, Agriculture,
Healthcare, and other departments and disciplines at TTU.
Architecture Design & Research Center
The Architecture Research & Design Center (ARDC) facilitates and coordinates research and design activities within the HCOA. Located
on the 6th floor of the Huckabee College, the Center assists faculty and students
in their research, scholarship, and creative endeavors; serves as a liaison to other
research centers and institutes, and provides architectural/research services to the
community.
The ARDC has four laboratories that direct research, design, service, and scholarly
activity in four specializations within the MS Arch degree: Design & Health, Digital
Computation and Fabrication, Historic Preservation and Design, and Urban and Community
Design.
The HCOA at El Paso maintains a research initiative POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies). In addition, the HCOA ARDC provides a venue for faculty initiatives and ongoing
research.
Urban Tech
An extension of our architecture program, Urban Tech is a place for students to think,
draw, design, model and create; a product of ideas and information in public exhibition
in the form of drawings and models and transportable information via digital media;
and a process of civic engagement and exploration. Urban Tech uses its downtown Lubbock
location for community outreach, raising awareness of the ways in which architecture
can address civic issues such as sustainability, resiliency, preservation, and revitalization
in the public realm.
Past initiatives include High Cotton, a homeless shelter facility; the Guadalupe-Parkway
Sommerville Centers playground; and downtown redevelopment project.
