Rice University in Houston, Texas, one of America's premier destinations for architectural education, has unveiled a significant new addition to its School of Architecture. The Cannady Hall, designed by Zurich-based firm Karamuk Kuo, represents a carefully considered architectural intervention in the heart of the university's historic campus quad.
The School of Architecture's main headquarters has long been housed in Anderson Hall, positioned directly adjacent to the university's expansive central courtyard known as the Quad. Originally designed by Staub & Rather and opened in 1947, Anderson Hall gained particular architectural significance following its 1981 expansion and renovation by renowned British architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford, marking their first project in the United States.
Sterling and Wilford's intervention was notably restrained, thoughtfully responding to the playful Neo-Byzantine style and simple post-war classicism of the existing Quad buildings. Into this complex architectural dialogue between historicist and postmodern elements, Karamuk Kuo has now successfully inserted their contemporary contribution.
The new two-story Cannady Hall occupies approximately 2,050 square meters and houses a workshop hall, collaborative work spaces, exhibition areas, and office facilities. This addition not only provides the School of Architecture with much-needed space but finally offers open areas conducive to contemporary teaching, studying, and working methodologies.
Positioned at the challenging exterior corner of the Quad, Cannady Hall sits between Stirling and Wilford's building and the distinguished Fondren Library, also constructed by Staub & Rather in 1949. The new structure connects to the postmodern building at the upper level through a corridor-like arm placed atop an open arcade passage. This relationship between open passages and enclosed spaces runs as an urban design theme throughout the entire project, which notably occupies a sensitive open corner of the Quad and creates a new courtyard space.
Formally, the addition picks up the roof slope of Stirling and Wilford's Anderson Hall and continues this roofline as a shed form, appropriate to the workshop character intended for the interior spaces. The robust yet simple steel structure inside notably recalls the much-cited student building in Braunschweig by Gustav Düsing and Max Hacke, suggesting similar ideas about contemporary university learning environments are being expressed in both cases.
The exterior envelope features red terracotta panels that help integrate the building with the campus's material palette. The project originated from a Request for Proposal process conducted in 2019 and was largely financed by its namesake, William T. Cannady, a Houston architect and professor at Rice University for over 50 years.
While the university has not officially disclosed construction costs, according to one of the involved consultants, the project budget totaled approximately 12 million euros. The building stands as a testament to thoughtful architectural addition-making, demonstrating how contemporary design can successfully engage with complex historical contexts while serving the evolving needs of architectural education.
