University of Virginia Library

Architecture Students
To Study In Texas

Six University students are on their
way to Austin, Texas, this week end to
begin a special study program that in
April will bring them and six University
of Texas students back to Charlottesville.

The 12 students are teaming up to
study manufactured housing under the
direction of Alan Y. Taniguchi, dean of
the University of Texas School of Architecture
who is Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Foundation Professor of Architecture
for the University of Virginia this
semester. They will spend five weeks at
each school.

Using several industries as case studies,
the students will develop ways in which
an industry not in the business of
manufactured housing can adapt its present
capabilities to the production of houses and
housing units.

"The housing shortage is a critical concern
facing the nation today," says Dean Taniguchi.
"More critical is the concern that projected
needs for housing in the future may be beyond
the ability of the housing industry to fill using
prosaic and traditional methods.

"Many industries are entering the field of
housing production," he says. "Some, by the
nature of the products they have been
producing, are more equipped and adaptable to
diversifying into this area."

Two such industries co-operating in the
program are the Braue Corporation, a metal
fabrication concern in ngleside. Texas, and the
Glaston Company, an Austin producer of fiber
glass boats.

Students will these and several other
companies' factories and study their resources
technical staff and know-how marketing
agreements, equipment and production
methods.

Then the students will propose means by
which such industries can use their present
resources in manufacturing housing. In addition,
they will design housing utilizing a
variety of materials. Their proposals, models
and drawings will be presented at the end of the
semester to both architecture schools and to
each participating industry.

"Their information may also be used by our
Center for Housing and Social Environment,"
says Joseph N. Bosserman, dean of the
University of Virginia School of Architecture.
This center is exploring new concepts in
housing to meet the needs of the growing world
population.

"An exchange program like this has been
talked about but never actually done before,"
says Dean Taniguchi.

For the students, chosen by professors as
representative of their fourth and fifth-year
classes, the opportunities are many, he says.
For example, they will be working in a
different environment with a new faculty: and
they will see new parts of the country on
special field trips conducted from each school
by the host students.

"We hope that their interest in housing will
not end with the semester, but will continue,"
says Dean Taniguchi.

As industries enter the field of housing
production, "it will be essential that inputs by
environment sensitive professionals be made to
insure the environmental quality in the products,"
he says.

The six students from the University
participating in the program are. James B.
Cardwell Jr., James Despasquate. Christos
Dedes. Gregory S. ukmire. Edward S.
Pancoast, and David Van Duzer.