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Environmental design students studying abroad last fall in the small Tuscan town of Castiglion Fiorentino reimagined the town’s piazza, creating proposals that included an international university, a culinary school and restaurant, theater, gallery, hotel, apartments and shops.

In the next edition of KAMU-TV’s “Brazos Valley Magazine,” artist Robert Schiffhauer, a professor of architecture at Texas A&M University, will discuss his acclaimed “Torchbearers” portrait series featuring prominent figures in African-American history.

Gene Summers FAIA, who left his design imprint on some of the world’s most recognizable Modern landmarks, a protégé of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and an outstanding alumnus of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, died Dec. 12 in a California hospital from liver cancer.

Texas A&M University President R. Bowen Loftin had a chance to see how former students are redefining the entertainment industry during a Nov. 16 visit to the Bay Area campuses of Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks Animation SKG.

Rodney Hill, a Texas A&M professor of architecture, has been named one of 2012’s “25 Most Admired Educators” by the Design Futures Council, another teaching honor for his already bulging trophy case.

The Texas A&M Department of Architecture is recruiting members for its newly formed Architecture Council of Excellence, which is committed to supporting and enhancing architecture program excellence, building relationships with students, and bridging gaps between the academic and professional worlds.

Bachelor and master’s degree programs in landscape architecture and the Master of Architecture program at Texas A&M were recently ranked among the nation’s best by the Design Futures Council.

“Black Narcissus,” an intricate architectural installation designed and fabricated by eight Texas A&M architecture students now graces the VIP room at the tony La Riviera restaurant in Bryan, Texas.

Students will have a unique opportunity to work with internationally renowned, contemporary artists in specialized workshops during the Spring 2012 Artist in Residence program at A&M’s College of Architecture. The workshops are open to anyone in the college, and no previous art experience is required.

As higher education leaders across the nation wrangle with budget constraints and consider reforms aimed at doing more with less, Texas A&M College of Architecture educators continue to embrace the studio, the time-tested cornerstone of design education, as the most critical component of modern design pedagogy.

Valuable sociological and economic data collected by the federal government but not available to the general public will soon be available to select researchers from Texas and the surrounding region with the opening this fall of the Texas Census Research Data Center at Texas A&M University.

A new report by the Texas Transportation Institute ranks 328 seriously congested highway corridors across the U.S. for the first time by morning and evening drive times, middays and weekends. It also identifies "reliably unreliable corridors with the most day-to-day variations in congestion.

The Center for Housing and Urban Development at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture is part of a new research, educational and engagement network focusing on providing sustainability science to South Texas policymakers and communities.

The Department of Visualization at the Texas A&M College of Architecture is offering a new, technology-infused Master of Fine Arts degree program that in fall 2011 will begin preparing students for careers in digital art education, fine arts, entertainment and media industries, as well as art as a vocation.

One former and one current student from Texas A&M’s College of Architecture were roommates for a week in Leogane, Haiti in November, part of a Habitat for Humanity effort to build homes in the city ravaged by a 2010 earthquake and hurricane.