
Founded in 1974, the School of Architecture and Urban Design grew so rapidly it required its own building within a decade. Located on the western edge of campus, the long, narrow building, designed by the firm founded by the school’s first director, Dallas architect Hal Box, forms a courtyard with the Fine Arts Building (1975, Parker Croston Associates) to the east. The four-story buff brick slab, which also houses art and music instruction, has a ground level arcade. Upper-story windows are deeply recessed into thick walls, with vertical metal fins providing protection from the west sun to second- and third-floor windows. Numerous linear rooftop lanterns supply reflected east light into fourth-floor studios. This is where architectural historian Jay C. Henry (1939–2005), author of Architecture in Texas: 1895–1945, taught.