Campus and Facilities

The School of Architecture and School of Design share the UIC Architecture + Design Studios building (ADS).

The work of 21st century design professionals involve a range of activities, from the craft-based traditions of design making to the leadership skills of design thinking, and our facilities are designed to support this spectrum.

Our school is designed to support guided individual instruction as well as collaborative exchange. Our large atrium and public spaces serve as galleries for student work as well as an open workspace that encourages community building and student collaboration. With their UIC IDs, students have 24/7 access to our public spaces.

The School of Design and the School of Architecture jointly operate the Project Lab and the Digital Fabrication Lab (Fab Lab). Easily accessible on the first floor of our shared building, these labs foster student exchange between the two schools. The Project Lab offers equipment for foam, wood, and metal model-making, such as a CNC router and a variety of table saws. The Fab Lab houses a 3D scanner, 3D printers, laser cutters, and other equipment used in the experimentation and production of prototypes. Both labs are supervised by full-time staff who conduct required student training sessions each semester. Additional safety checks and guided instruction ensure that all students learn how to safely use the laboratory equipment with no prior experience necessary.

The Print Lab offers the latest in digital imaging services including color laser and inkjet printing, large format printing, and Risograph printing, in addition to offering letterpress printing, foil stamping, and an assortment of bookbinding equipment. It is also the place where students can check out camera equipment, laptops, power chargers, production tools, and more. The Photo Studio supports coursework as well as individual student projects.

In addition to the resources of the ADS building, our students have access to UIC’s world-renowned Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) with immersive projection and virtual reality capabilities as well as the UIC Innovation Center where interdisciplinary student and faculty teams work collaboratively with university, business, and cultural partners.

The UIC School of Design was established in 2013 as one of four academic units within the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts, but the building in which the school is housed dates back to the establishment of the current university campus.

The UIC Architecture + Design Studios building was designed and built by UIC campus architect Walter Netsch in 1968. Netsch and his team from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed the original UIC Circle campus in the Brutalist style, an experimental architectural style characterized by monolithic slabs of concrete, rough surfaces, and a beautiful but rigid geometry.

At the time of its inception, the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus was viewed as a modern, compact campus meant to bring higher education to Chicago’s working populace. The buildings were clustered by function, rather than discipline, designed to encourage more interaction between those utilizing the spaces. All clusters were arranged concentrically around the Circle Forum (now known as The Quad), inspired by the rings generated by a pebble dropped in a pool of water. Netsch likened this design to “knowledge spreading out” amongst the students and faculty, a metaphor for interdisciplinary collaboration. A secondary elevated walkway was conceived to help alleviate student traffic amongst the close-set buildings, though it has since been taken down.

After designing the first set of buildings for the UIC campus, Netsch kept experimenting with rectangular forms, brick, precast concrete, and glass exteriors. Netsch based the Architecture + Design Studios building on his “Field Theory,” a three-dimensional geometry based on the double helix of DNA. The blueprints for the ADS building feature a series of rotating squares stacked on top of one another, twisting and adapting the strict geometry. With Field Theory, Netsch turned corridors into exhibition spaces, stairs into amphitheaters, and roofs into classrooms.