Art + Architecture BuildingWe admit it...we're fond of our building.
Should we be embarrassed to feel so passionately enamored with a building?
Well, we are designers, after all. But it’s deeper than that. The more you’re in it, the more the Art + Architecture Building gets into your bloodstream. You smile when you walk in. You notice a new way the sun is angled through the four-story atrium. You appreciate your open studio after spending time in a traditional classroom on campus, and even though you’ve spent hour upon hour in the building, you still marvel at the interior — incredibly and perfectly designed for you, a design student.
Our award-winning building, affectionately called “The A+A” (pronounced “A and A”), houses administrative and faculty offices for the College of Architecture and Design as well as 450+ individual student workstations in open studio spaces.聽 The building also has lecture rooms, a woodshop and fabrication space, art galleries, an auditorium, exhibition and review spaces and an amazing atrium flooded with natural light and open to the ceiling four floors above.
To fully appreciate the A+A, you need to be here, but until that day, take a virtual tour:
It’s no wonder the A+A was named a 2017聽聽by USA Today.
The A+A is the second home to the college. In 1965, the New School of Architecture opened its doors in Estabrook Hall, a building near Neyland Stadium. A growing economy and college meant a new building was needed, and in 1981, we moved into the A+A.
Bruce McCarty, who was a founder of local design firm, McCarty Holsaple McCarty Architects and Interior Designers, along with his son, Doug McCarty, a 1973 graduate of the college, designed the A+A as part of a design competition. It is more than 160,000 square feet, and the atrium, which runs the full length of the building, is about 360 feet long.
Because you will spend much of your time in the A+A (lucky you), you will have 24/7 access to it. Come see the A+A, and you’ll understand why we’re simply crazy about it.
