The School of Art + Design: Innovating Then and Innovating Now
Staying true to the long history of innovation will be the challenge for the next director of the School of Art + Design. Effective July 1, Professor Glenn Goldman, FAIA, IIDA, has decided to return to full time teaching after leading the School as Director since its founding in 2008. He will assume the title of Director Emeritus in recognition of his pivotal role in developing and growing the design programs in the School.
Goldman acknowledged the national reputation of the School of Art + Design (A+D) is a collective success story. “I want to tell you all how grateful I am for having had the opportunity to work with colleagues in the School. It is very rare that someone gets a chance to build something in academia. None of this would have been possible without such an extraordinary, talented, and dedicated group of people who worked with me towards the common goal of excellence. I am looking forward to spending more time in the classroom with our students.”
Faculty echoed similar sentiments about Goldman, “Glenn cares deeply about Digital Design and always tries to set up a Petri dish of sorts for success by letting teachers have enough creative freedom to make the classes rich and dynamic,” said A+D faculty Miguel Rodrigues.
The originating events for the long history of innovation at A+D happened 35 years ago when senior faculty Steve Zdepski and Goldman received a grant from the New Jersey Department of Higher Education. The college was known as the New Jersey School of Architecture, and studying design meant studying architecture. 35 years ago, 2D and 3D designs (and animations) were all hand drawn.
Zdepski and Goldman recognized the value of this ground breaking shift to the digital realm. “We were the first architecture program to create fully electronic (digital) design studios in 1985. Our studios had 3D modeling, color with a palette of more than 250,000 colors, and double-scan CGA resolution. We were then the first to present the use of animation in an architecture studio in 1987,” said Goldman. The college became the first architecture school in the country to adopt 3D modeling as a result of this collaboration.
“While most working in this space were coming from a computer science data driven perspective, we were more visual. In 1988 Steve and I created and presented a taxonomy of different types of images that change the way we design,” said Goldman. “In 1990 we were the first to show image sampling for use in design. In 1991 Steve and I were co-chairs of the annual ACADIA conference and part of a larger discussion about simulation. In 1994 Mike Hoon and I presented the use of objective and non-objective sound in the design and presentation processes for architecture.” During this heyday there were several seminal papers published and widespread recognition within the industry and academia for this leading edge work.
Students were a big part of this innovation as well: From 1996 to 2002, students in the college won more CADDY awards than anyone else, often sweeping first, second and third places in the student category.
“We spent almost ten years turning what was an experiment into the standard way of doing things. All the architecture schools pretty much everywhere, use computers the way Steve and I first did and follow in some way, the model that was pioneered at NJIT,” said Goldman. There were many other “firsts” after that: “in 2000, we were the first one to get a grant to use REVIT before it was owned by Autodesk, it was so new they were sending us updates every day.”
Along with the innovations that were introduced, the old way of doing things was also being challenged. “I campaigned from 1985 to 2004 before I got permission to get rid of the parallel rules on student desks and have computers in the studios. At the time, it was considered heresy. In 2004, we became the first architecture program to fully embrace digital media for design. Instead of parallel rules, everyone got a computer. We did this for the entire first year class,” said Goldman.
“Glenn always had the best equipment in his labs, he made deals with the software companies, and had a singular focus on having the technology that made the computer arts possible. Our students always get jobs because everyone knows that they are designers with competence in graphics, animation and rendering,” said Matt Gosser, once a student and now an instructor.
The next digital advance came with the development of Kepler as a platform to archive student work. With Kepler the college was the first to move to a fully digital platform for accreditation reviews. There were several people working on this: John Cays, Mike Hoon, Mike Kehoe, Kim de Freitas, and Goldman. “We were the first school/program to present evidence electronically for accreditation to NAAB, CIDA, and NASAD. In fact, CIDA paid to have David Brothers attend a workshop to demonstrate the way an electronic submission can be done,” added Goldman.
It was in this fashion that the way architecture education at the college departed from how everyone taught at the time. These were the innovations that ultimately led to the establishment of A+D in 2008. The school was designed in part to be a generalist school and the idea was to provide a strong general education with broad exposure to the discipline(s) so students discover their strengths, interests, their favorite tools, and their design style.
“Each program offers something unique: Interior design pushes the technology for design and includes immersive virtual reality, industrial design has a unique combination of foci that include traditional product design, product design based on electronics and interactivity, and product design based on the study and use of unique and developing materials incorporating nanotechnology. Digital design offers the unique perspective of combining multiple subdisciplines (e.g. animation, games, user experience) into one program,” said Goldman.
Goldman has received awards too numerous to count over the course of the last 35 years, and the A+D students still run away with the awards. The student body is involved with SIGGRAPH, IIDA, IDSA, and numerous other design organizations, competitions and conferences, and because of that the school itself consistently ranks among the top in the nation for its programs.
“He understands the circumstances and tendencies of each of his students and constantly communicates with them in a friendly and close manner in order to bring out their potential to the highest level. Under his guidance, I won third place in IIDA PA/NJ/DE, volunteered in SIGGRAPH Asia 2020, and received a scholarship from the university,” said Okhyun Des Lauriers, a student in the Interior Design program.
This legacy of innovation also led to the recent integration of VR into the Interior Design program. Supported with funding from Dean Kolarevic, second year students in interior design started working with VR Oculus rift gear at the beginning of their projects.
“This past spring semester, Glenn gave our class the opportunity to use Oculus Rifts in order to design our spaces. He has this passion to incorporate digital technologies to improve our design skills and processes. If it weren't for this passion, I would not have advanced my design in the way that I did,” said interior design student Mirka Cruz.
Today, design students at Hillier College, whether in the School of Architecture or A+D, are introduced to technology early on, participate actively with SIGGRAPH and are steeped in a culture of innovation and coloring outside the lines that Goldman and all of the faculty at Hillier college have nurtured to this day.
“Glenn’s legacy to A+D has been in service to essentially one thing: his resolute devotion to students. More than any of the many accomplishments he can claim for the success of the three programs, I know that his true success was making sure that students were receiving the best education they possibly could and every decision and initiative he fought for was premised on this goal,” said David Brothers, Interior Design program coordinator.
“I deeply appreciate all that Glenn has done over these many years. His extraordinary care, mentorship, and tireless efforts with faculty and students have built a remarkable School of Art + Design from scratch,” noted Associate Dean John Cays. “I look forward to working with him in his capacity as director emeritus as we continue to innovate further and broaden our offerings to educate the next generation of artists and designers!”