Facilities
Auburn School of Architecture in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction includes on-campus and off-campus venues of study. Each venue has its own unique character.

On-campus
Dudley Commons Complex
Brick and concrete Dudley Commons Complex is located at the heart of Auburn’s campus adjacent to the dramatic pine canopy of the Bibb Graves Amphitheater. Formerly located in Biggin Hall across from Toomer’s Drug Store at the corner of College and Magnolia, the School of Architecture moved to its present location in 1977, in order to be part of the Performing Arts Zone of campus along with the theater, dance, and choral and instrumental music programs. The CADC complex includes Dudley Commons, Dudley Hall, a communal courtyard linking the two buildings, and a Fabrication Shop. Degree programs in the School of Architecture include Master of Landscape Architecture, Master of Community Planning, Architecture, and Interior Architecture. Dudley is also home to CADC’s Department of Building Science .

Dudley Commons
Dudley Commons houses the large CADC lecture hall, CADC Gallery, Dudley Supply Store, and the Architecture Library.

Library
The Library of Architecture, Design, and Construction (LADC), a branch library of RBD, is located within the Dudley Commons Complex.

library numbers
The LADC collections include 37,750 volumes, 97 current periodicals, 1450 student theses, 55 blueprints/floor plans, 500 videos, 75,750 slides, and online access to the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals.

The facilities include 7000 square feet with shelving space for 40,000 volumes, and a seating capacity of 90.

The services include 110.25 hours of opening, reference assistance, slide room assistance, and circulation services, with extended hours during exam periods. LADC also maintains photocopiers, an image scanner, and a large format scanner.

The staff includes one librarian and three support staff, one of whom is a full-time slide curator. LADC has approximately 86 weekly hours of student assistant time.

Gallery
Dudley Gallery is a triangular shaped interior located along one of the main pedestrian thoroughfares of campus. Faculty and students exhibit work in the gallery. Recent School of Architecture shows include ARIA Thesis “Digital Fabrications”, “FYP Transportables”, and Assistant Professor Charlene Lebleu and MLA’s “Rain Gardens.” Recent gallery shows from beyond Auburn include an exhibition of the large watercolor paintings of Thomas Lyon Mills, an artist and professor at Rhode Island School of Design.

Wireless infrastructure
The School of Architecture is equipped with a wireless infrastructure that works in the Dudley Commons Complex. Architecture students embraced a laptop initiative which has allowed students to work digitally from their studio desks. The laptop initiative promotes a studio culture, as it enables students to primarily work in the studio spaces as opposed to hiding off in the non-collective atmosphere of the labs. This also allows labs to evolve to promote more specialized digital work, plotting, group instruction, and work on alternative platforms from individual laptops.

Dudley Supply Store
Dudley Supply Store offers a selection of studio materials and is located in Dudley Commons off of the courtyard.

Dudley Hall
Four story Dudley Hall includes design studio spaces, crit spaces, classrooms, faculty offices, dark room, and computer laboratories. It is constructed of concrete with a mostly exposed waffle slab, concrete floors, brick veneer, views of sunrise to the East from the studio balconies, and the pleasant smell of chipboard. In many ways it is a great architecture school because it constantly makes students and faculty contemplate what makes a good building for an architecture school. These contemplations often lead to design interventions as necessary. Despite Dudley’s robust non-robustness, it should be noted that useful studio learning features at Dudley include a 5 foot grid scored into the concrete floors, exposed waffle slab in the studio spaces as a clear structural example to students, and 12 foot high studio ceilings. Whether or not all post-1977 alumni think in 5 foot increments has yet to be determined, but is probable.

Several faculty and students have designed interventions in Dudley Hall’s interior including the Diagonal Crit Space, Corrugated Pin-up Wall, 3rd floor Cube, ARIA Material Lab Pod, Kiosk, and the 3rd floor Long Table.

Most recently in 2006, the FYP Foundation Unit studio has completed a series of Sol Lewitt inspired “Wall Drawings.”

Studios
Studios at Auburn’s School of Architecture are dedicated studios where students have access to their own drafting desk and lockers. Dudley studios come in two varieties occurring as open studios in the long north/south bays and west end, and occurring as locked studios on the north face. Locked studios are designated for MLA and AR thesis projects as well as FYP. All studios have wireless capabilities and are in close proximity to plotters, although inevitably pencils are always closer.

ARIA Materials Library
The ARIA Sustainable Materials Library and Prototype Laboratory is a physical and virtual library initiative prioritizing research about sustainable materials and other new materials. ARIA students are actively engaged in the material research and sample collection. A material library pod, designed and built by ARIA students, is located on floor 3 of Dudley Hall. The pod allows the students to have tactile experience with the collection and to farm research from the collection for use in design studio projects. The material collection is constantly in flux and operates in tandem with the Elements of Interior Architecture 2 course.

Computer labs
General lab, 419
General computing lab 419 is used for group computer instruction. When not in use for group instruction the lab is available to students.

Specialized lab, 303
Specialized lab 303 includes 2 large format plotters as well as 2 color printers for student use.

The IT Office and Help Desk, 221
Students can take any of their computer related problems to the Help Desk, which is located in 221.

Dark room
Dudley Dark Room is presently not in its full glory, but it is still there and kicking as far as we know it. Please use it so we don’t lose it.

Crit spaces
Crit spaces are tucked into the building wherever even the wish of a crit space materializes. A concerted effort in the late 90’s led to the blurring of the line of the hallways and studios to extract and double possibilities for crit spaces. The only original jury space is the Alcove on the first floor. Other crit spaces include Diagonal Crit Space, Corrugated Pin-up Wall, 3rd floor Cube, 3rd floor Recycled Space, and occasionally the Gallery is used for juries. An exquisite glowing Box for crit space is planned for over the Fabrication Shop when funds become available.

Dudley Courtyard
Surrounding a valorous maple tree, the Courtyard is primarily utilized as an informal gathering place for students and faculty in between scheduled activities.

It doubles as a fabrication space often operating as an outdoor gallery and testing lab for large student projects. Since 2003, First Year Program Foundation Unit creates prototypes in the Courtyard of inflatable spaces and inflatable quilted surfaces for the stage set of the South’s B.E.S.T. Robotics Competition held in the Coliseum each year. Brick (Q-bert style) platforms also serve as testing grounds for small scale bridge span projects. The Dean’s Bridge offers great view of Courtyard activities and is slated to be enclosed as a premier gallery space. In the fall, AU marching band often holds sectional rehearsals in the courtyard due to the acoustic qualities of the brick veneer.

Perhaps most famous as the site of the annual School of Architecture Great Pumpkin Carve, the Courtyard is a place for the university and local communities to celebrate Halloween festivities through design. Hundreds of Auburn children and adults come to see the gutsy orange creations each year in an Auburn tradition second only to the rolling of Toomer’s Corner.

In theory the courtyard is not only an outdoor room for Dudley, but it is also a main thoroughfare of the Auburn Concourse. As a public space the Concourse is the pedestrian core of campus. The School of Architecture believes in the connection, with the Courtyard acting as a public space along the Concourse, and hopes for a more obvious and direct connection to the Haley Center Concourse as the campus master plan develops.

Away from the Courtyard proper and behind Dudley Supply Store, a small Bench Garden faces a foreground of 3 white cherry trees and a steel sculpture that demonstrates steel connection details. Beyond this foreground is the historic Graves Amphitheatre with 100 foot tall mature pines forming a lofty canopy over the rubble stone seating area where the AU Band practices and throngs of people tail-gate on game days.

Fabrication Shop + Patio
Dudley’s Fabrication Shop, directed by Steve Protzman, includes traditional woodworking machinery as well as recently acquired and constantly expanding digital equipment. Digital acquisitions include laser cutters and a CNC Router that accommodates 4′ x 8′ sheet material. A forecourt below the studio balconies may be accessed from the shop when the large garage door is raised. This patio is used for material experimentation with primarily wood, brick, or concrete. First Year Summer Option stages a wooden Renga project in this space as well as various casting projects. Like most courts under balconies, it is perfect for the infamous egg-drop project. An occasional student performs Tai Chi in the patio when the concrete isn’t flying.

It is rumored that the Fabrication Patio is slated to become the new primary entrance into Dudley Hall as a replacement for the current Dumpster Alley entrance.

Bibb Graves Amphitheater
Established in 1935, Bibb Graves Amphitheater is a vehicle-free park for concerts, outdoor classes, tail-gating and picnicking. Located next to Dudley Commons the canopy of mature pines makes the amphitheater perhaps the most spectacular landscape at Auburn University, especially at sunset.

Dixie Bibb Graves was Alabama’s first and only woman senator. David Bibb Graves was governor of Alabama from 1927-1931.