Introduction

The College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects is composed of members of the Institute who are elected to Fellowship by a jury of their peers. Fellowship is one of the highest of all AIA honors. It recognizes the architects’ achievements as an individual and his or her significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level.

Andrew Vernooy’s essential work in education forges new pathways that improve access and representation, creatively engages practitioners, integrates fresh scholarship, and ultimately expands the understanding of architecture as both an academic and an applied discipline.

Leadership in Academia

As Dean of the Texas Tech University of School of Architecture, Vernooy addressed one major cause for the profession’s lack of diversity: access. His “2+2” undergraduate pathway agreement with El Paso Community College is a national model that seamlessly links foundation programs in community college to accredited university programs and is the only architectural program to receive a federal grant ($6 million) from the department of education. To date, the very popular program has matriculated more than 250 graduates, most from the border region (including Mexico), thus increasing diversity at the School of Architecture to make it Tech’s only minority-majority college. The NAAB-accredited program also received recognition from the State of Texas. Vernooy then built partnerships with other community colleges to increase the number of architecture programs, worked with the State of Texas to create a standard set of state-approved courses for the first two years of an architecture program. As the Texas Society of Architects Young Public Awareness Committee’s founding chair, he also brought the AIA into discussions with the state education board. This work came on the heels of his saving the Texas Tech program from losing its accreditation, a circumstance he inherited upon his appointment as dean. He created four required undergraduate programs that bring practitioners into academia through a practice studio, a residency program, an atelier studio and the West Texas Visiting Critics Studio in remote Marfa, Texas. Vernooy also established a Houston-based community development and urban design practicum studio for undergraduate students to earn an Urban Design Certificate and a storefront community design program in downtown Lubbock that explores design issues with the community. He created three new post-professional programs and made international study a required component of the undergraduate program for the first time, which earned him the TTU Global Visions Award three times.

Teaching and Scholarship

A dedicated educator and prolific researcher, Vernooy has continually investigated diverse areas of study, from materials and systems to technical issues and urban design, making important new connections between seemingly disparate professional elements. He has taught construction, design, advanced structural systems, urban planning, history and theory at three American universities. He has given presentations and papers to more than two dozen conferences and symposia in five countries (and in two languages). He is the author of dozens of papers on structural systems and construction and urban design theory. He has contributed research-based articles to Texas Architect and the award-winning national journal Center. Vernooy is currently under contract with Routledge to complete the book Undergraduate Research in Architecture. Vernooy’s teaching and research earned him the Texas Society of Architects Romieniec Award, which recognizes significant contributions to education and ACI International Engineer of the Year in recognition of his study of the use of reinforced concrete in the design of structures. He also received the 2006 NCARB Prize for Creativity in the Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy. He is a founding partner of Black & Vernooy, and its predecessor, Black Atkinson Vernooy, the Austin-based, award-winning architecture and urban design firm.