Bridging to the Bicentenary: Collaboratively Educating Engineers and Architects

Abstract

<p>Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has been educating civil engineers for almost 200 years and over the last fifteen a unique collaborative program has developed between the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, the School of Architecture and prominent structural engineers. Funded by the Bedford Endowment, the program pairs architecture and structural engineering students over their senior semesters in a range of courses designed to improve mutual understanding, develop awareness of design motivations and aesthetics in the engineers and structural forces and forms in the architects. Led by a leading structural engineer from practice on a three year appointment, the Bedford Professor teaches both a seminar and a studio class and leads a ten day travelling workshop at the end of each academic year that exposes engineering and architecture students to best practice examples of collaboration in the design of the built environment.</p>