ArtEDGE, a collaborative program involving the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, OU Libraries and the College of Architecture’s Interior Design Division, brought fifty 7th and 8th grade Norman Public School students to the OU campus for an engaging, interdisciplinary experience. The program led the students through three different stages of analysis and creation. In the first stage, students learned about the history, purpose and inspiration behind the architectural designs of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and analyzed and interpreted a museum piece as inspiration for their design project. This Fall, the focal piece was Two Figures, a bronze abstract sculpture by Barbara Hepworth. Students used observation skills, descriptive language and sketching exercises to develop a story and place inspired by the piece. The students then visited The EDGE in Bizzell Memorial library, where they created and manipulated a virtual model of the place they were designing. Students received 3D-printed models of Two Figures from The Edge that would be later used in an architectural model. Once they arrived at the College of Architecture, the students united their individually developed designs and constructed their models.
A model created by one of the participants.
Models and sketches from the ArtEDGE experience will be on display in the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art’s Education Gallery during Spring 2017. For more information about the ArtEDGE program, contact Elizabeth Pober (epober@ou.edu).
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture congratulates Thinh "Henry" Duong, a master's student in the Division of Interior Design, for earning first place in the 2026 Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Director and Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design (PLAD) faculty member Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., recently published a new book, Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum.
In May, students from the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture's Architecture, Environmental Design, and Interior Design programs participated in an intensive five-day Studio in Residence at Taliesin West, the iconic winter home and desert laboratory of Frank Lloyd Wright.
