Read Lining: UHD9 Renovation

Abstract

For a University of Houston downtown (UHD) campus renovation, the school's administration asked us to convert the entire ninth floor of a 1929 cotton warehouse into executive administrative offices, including those of the president, vice president, provost, and human resources department. In response to this task, we posed two primary questions: How can we combine “high‐end” and “low‐end” materials to alter typical expectations of how a university administrative office should and should not appear? How can we challenge assumed differences between use and appearance, part and whole—and, ultimately, between student and administrator—to produce a space that suspends hierarchical preconceptions and produces a more open “etiquette” for dialogue?