Dean's Welcome

In this third decade of the twenty-first century, we are at an inflection point. This is as true for the Hillier College of Architecture & Design as it is for virtually every aspect of contemporary culture. Will we boldly embrace this moment of change to make the world a better place or will we timidly accept a new normal that is defined by someone else? Hillier College is a robust community of thinkers and makers, researchers and innovators, and teachers and students, and we are well prepared to meet head on the challenges of the here and now—from the pandemic to the climate crisis, to social justice. 

At Hillier College this is an appropriate moment to commit ourselves to rethinking the norms of architecture and design—in practice and in education—because we are about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the New Jersey School of Architecture and the 15th anniversary of the School of Art + Design. When the NJSOA was founded in 1973, the school devoted itself to “a comprehensive approach to problem solving” built upon “collective expertise.” From the beginning we embraced systems thinking and interdisciplinarily, especially with the social sciences, along with design at the urban scale, but it was not until the SA+D commenced in 2008, that we realized that early ambition to create a college in which industrial design and interior design were allied with architecture and urban design.

From the beginning, the faculty of what is now Hillier College were determined to foster “an atmosphere free of traditional constraints.” Fresh from the upheavals of the 1960s, that meant redefining the relationship between practice and community—and making Newark the subject and object of work in the studios. That commitment to the city has remained steadfast in the intervening decades and is evident today in the College’s Newark Design Collaborative.

Back in the 70s, freedom from traditional constraints also meant rethinking design itself—and embracing new means of representation. We were one of the first schools in the country (make that the world!) to bring computers into the studio. We didn’t just anticipate the ways the digital revolution would reshape design; we led the way. We still do: Digital Design is the college’s fastest growing program. 

Even as we make and explore virtual realms, our feet are firmly planted on terra firma. We use digital technologies to design and build everything from furniture to green walls and interactive environments, from parklets to mobile medical units and shelters for the unhoused. But there is always more we can do, and must do, to shape the world around us for the better.

So, let’s act with conviction and determination, deploying architecture and design as local citizens of a global society and meeting massive change with massive impact. As the great novelist Toni Morrison once asked, “What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?”

Gabrielle Esperdy, Dean + Professor of Architecture