College of Design

A major retrospective of Oregon architect John Yeon opens at the Portland Art Museum May 13 and runs through September 3.

What would inspire 15 University of Oregon seniors to stay the night in the freshman residence at Bean Hall?

Ultimately, to help 600 freshmen each year have a better living experience. But to get there, the seniors — in the Product Design 484 “Compact Living” studio — spent a night in the residence hall to generate ideas for the state prison system, whose inmates have built UO residence hall furniture for two decades.

We are excited to share the news that the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts' proposal to become the College of Design has been approved following review by the Office of the Provost and the University Senate. The renaming will take effect on July 1, 2017.

The UO Department of Product Design will host the 2017 Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) West District Design Conference April 23-24. This year’s theme is “DESIGN: HYBRID.” Registration will continue onsite.

“When you’re homeless, you get so used to doing what you have to do to survive another day that you’re not thinking about getting up at a certain time or looking for work or taking care of yourself. Those are skills you have to re-learn.”
— Robin Lloyd, resident of the Portland Rescue Mission.

Architecture graduate students at the UO in Portland are designing concepts to provide relief for Portland’s unhoused population that will help ease them back into mainstream society.

When Willie Richardson moved from South Carolina to Oregon in 1978, she came with her three sisters and their families. Though the five adults and six kids traveled in cars rather than in a covered wagon, as African Americans from the South moving West to reinvent their lives, they were akin to pioneers.

A generous gift from Robert Gamblin, BS ’70, will provide seed funding for an art research center to “spark energy and interest and excitement” in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

Gamblin, who serves on A&AA’s Dean’s Advancement Council, and his wife, Catherine, decided on the gift after lengthy discussions with the School.

A&AA’s Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) will collaborate with TriMet, the Portland region’s major transit agency, on dozens of multidisciplinary projects focusing on the Southwest Corridor Light Rail Project starting in September. The project aims to bring transit, bicycle, roadway, and pedestrian improvements to communities in southwest Portland and southeast Washington County. Students will explore concepts related to urban mobility, climate change, environmental habitat and restoration, urban design and placemaking, and public outreach.

Efforts by A&AA students going back to 2013 will come to fruition in a new two-way bike lane the City of Eugene expects to build in 2018. The UO’s LiveMove student organization spearheaded the project after an off-campus student housing development was built without allowing for a bike-friendly route to campus. The LiveMove group, which included planning and architecture students, designed what will be called the David Minor Bikeway.

Read more in Around the O

Since the 1990s, students and faculty in the University of Oregon ceramics program have practiced repurposing used clay and glaze materials to create tiles, rather than mopping the waste down the drain, the de facto method for most ceramics studios.

UO ceramics professor Brian Gillis will demonstrate the sophisticated process later this month at the annual National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts conference in Portland.