Mills emphasizes design in third of
series of departmental gatherings

Glen Mills, head of the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University, is improving his department using a tradition from his native South Africa.

On January 14, Mills convened the third indaba since he took the reins of the department in the fall 2008 semester. An indaba is a Zulu term for a forum involving shared ideas, collaboration and discussing issues that affect a community. January’s indaba was a free-ranging discussion among architecture faculty members about the quality of design carried out in the department.

“I’m emphasizing the design and the design process as a defining mark in our department, because I believe that’s the big contribution that Texas A&M’s department of architecture can make globally to the making of the built environment,” he said.

To illustrate what’s going on in the department, examples of graduate and undergraduate student design are displayed on the first floor of the Langford A Building.

“You see the rich variety, the diversity, of design approaches that we bring to bear in the Bachelor of Environmental Design and Master of Architecture programs,” said Mills. “It’s kind of an exposé of what we’re doing.”

He wants to introduce a wider audience to the quality of student work being produced throughout the department.

“I really want faculty to see the results of work in the design studios. The exhibition is about making tangible the work that is carried out in the design curriculum,” he said.

“We have the expertise here, we have tremendous faculty, and a very strong research base,” said Mills. I want to see the research efforts, the scholarly work being carried out here, brought to bear on the design of the environment,” said Mills, who plans to schedule more departmental indabas in the future.