Kean University: The Latest Architecture and News

A team comprised of Moore Ruble Yudell (MRY), Tongji Architectural Design and Research Institute and SWA Landscape have proposed the winning design for the new College of Architecture and Design at Wenzhou-Kean University in Wenzhou, China. Their design is made up of a series of rectangular volumes, at the core of which lies a large forum, central to both the building and the university as a whole. Prominently sited at the entrance to the campus, the new College presents a grand portico to welcome visitors into the university through the formal entry quad.

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The residence belonging to famed Postmodernist architect Michael Graves will be sold to Kean University, home to the new Michael Graves College for architecture and design, after receiving approval from its board of trustees. Following Graves’s death last year, the architect’s will stipulated that the residence, his studio, another property were to be donated to Princeton University, Graves’s neighbor and longtime employer. But Princeton University felt the buildings would be better served in another capacity and rejected the gift, allowing Kean to step in.

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Kean University has announced plans to open a new architecture school based on the design philosophy of Michael Graves. Following the footsteps of a man who laments the “loss of drawing,” the new Michael Graves School of Architecture will prioritize hand drawings as a key to design process.

“In our technologically savvy world, to this day, Michael Graves’ philosophy is to draw by hand first so that the students see, ‘feel’ and experience the new building spatially. Then, only after the drawing is complete will the students transfer the design to a computer so that the computer becomes an execution tool, not an ideation tool,” describes acting dean and former student of Graves, David Mohney.